Game of Doubt
by NightWolfMoon
Summary: It's supposed to be a fun week at a mansion for them during Christmas break, but unbeknowst to the rabbits, a wolf hides among them. The wolf's weapon? Doubt. Doubt makes for the greatest weapon, no one having any idea just who to trust. Everyone sees the wolf in everyone else, but who's right? Who's the deceiver? After all, in Rabbit Doubt, the liar must die.
1. I Fun and Games

**Chapter I: Fun and Games**

Dammit, PJ died again.

He'd had the inkling that the wolf was the player that went by the username ChimeraExperiment, but now he was certain.

"Is that Rabbit Doubt?"

Emmett's voice seemed so abrupt, PJ nearly jumped right out of his skin, his smartphone ending up halfway across the library and hitting a girl in the back.

Getting up from the large table, PJ rushed over to the girl with shoulder length, blonde hair, who was rubbing her shoulder.

"Oh my God," said PJ, retrieving his phone. "I'm so sorry—_Jo_?"

Now that the girl had turned around, light brown eyes widening for a brief moment in surprise, it was obviously Gabe's once-crush. She didn't look much different save for the new hair color and the fact she was actually wearing a skirt—the tie was new as well.

"Wow, you're as stupid as your brother. Idiocy that knows no bounds." She noticed the college student's eyes moving towards her laptop. "I like to keep myself occupied with games once in a while, okay? I just skipped two grades, and I'm here to tour some campuses for Fall."

"Sorry," said Emmett as he walked up, taking off his checkered fedora as he gave a small bow.

A few of his twisted locks of raven hair fell over his eyebrows, the new look he'd been cultivating for the past year having earned him names such as "Reggae" and "Rastafari" at his college.

"It was my fault," Emmett continued. "I'd forgotten how much of a scaredy-cat PJ can be."

PJ fixed his roommate with a glare. "Oh, shut up."

"Are you two doofuses done?" Jo had her arms crossed. "I'd like to get back to my studying."

Still holding onto his cellphone, PJ put his hands up in a surrendering gesture. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry, and welcome back to Denver."

"Thanks, but the college here is just a backup."

"Well, if Yale's on your list, Teddy got in, so I can always talk to her if you need—"

He stopped at the glower he swore the girl must have been born with to have mastered such a look so well. It was a look that could make anyone stop in his tracks, even if she still stood a couple inches below PJ's shoulder, even in heels.

"I don't need your help," she said slowly in a low, overly-calm voice. "I can get into _Harvard_ on my own, thank you very much."

She then stuffed her books into a bag, looking ready to move to a different part of the library, but she didn't close her laptop, looking to still be in the middle of a game.

"'Bye." Her tone was brusque, the girl's hair floating over her narrow shoulders as she fast-walked towards the staircase.

Once she was gone, PJ and Emmett headed back to their table, the blond twenty-four-year-old exhaling heavily as his friend commented, "Wow, that girl is scary."

"Always was," PJ chuckled, pushing his bangs up away from his forehead—he needed to pick up a new gel stick later. "Put Teddy in a neck brace once, actually. Pinched nerve from getting flipped."

Emmett flinched. While he didn't have a huge crush on Teddy anymore—thank God—he did still care about her, though in a friendlier, almost sibling-like, way.

"Ouch. Well, back to my original question: You playing Rabbit Doubt? And it looked like Jo was too."

Nodding, PJ checked his phone's screen for any cracks. Luckily, he'd invested in an Otterbox after last time. "Yeah, and she must be really into it. You see the hanging rabbit sticker on her Mac?"

"Yep. Maybe it's 'cause I'm black, but that really creeps me out. Couldn't they think of some other execution for their mascot?"

"When I talked to Teddy—apparently the game's really popular over on her campus—she said that hanging used to serve mainly as a warning. Basically, 'See what happens when you screw with us?' Like in case if they hanged the wrong guy, it's a message to the right guy."

"Still creepy."

"Pretty much the point, and it's fun. Reminds me of Mafia." PJ smiled as he opened his laptop, getting ready to do some actual work. "Remember how we used to play that at summer camp like every night?"

Laughing, Emmett went to grab a few books from the nearby shelf. "Yeah, it was always easy to tell when that Tyler kid was one of the killers 'cause you were always the first to die."

"Which you used to your advantage when it was your turn to be one of the killers."

"Yep!" Emmett sat down across from PJ and took out his laptop. "So the Demon Chef any nicer?"

"No, but my cooking's definitely getting better, so it's worth the abuse."

Smirking, Emmett looked up from his laptop. "So you _are_ a masochist."

"Shut up." PJ woke up his laptop. "I'm not the one that gave into curiosity and read _Fifty Shades_."

Emmett shuttered at the memory of that book and got to his work.

Finals for the Fall semester would be in just a few weeks, Turkey Day out of the way and Christmas break the silver lining waiting just on the other side of this pitch-black cloud.

PJ's essay for his nutrition class was due in a week, and he was going to need to spend less time burning through his data plan and study for chemistry and statistics. Finance was proving to be tough too, PJ having not realized just how much work he'd need to put into his worst subjects to follow his dream in the culinary arts.

Chef had shown them pictures of an institute in Vienna, and _God_, PJ wanted to go.

"So you got killed?" asked Emmett after about ten minutes of silence.

He played Rabbit Doubt as well, almost obsessively for the first few months, but he didn't get onto the site as much anymore, not as much as PJ anyway. He went by TitanFighter while PJ called himself NotFurniture. They were often part of the same group, and as PJ instinctively saved his document even when he hadn't typed anything new in some time, his phone lit up from a chat alert from Rabbit Doubt.

"Yeah, Chimera's good."

Unlocking his mobile, PJ read the message from The_Trashman, who had become a good online buddy.

**The_Trashman: ah man! it was freaking CE! srry NF**

PJ chuckled and sent, **dont wrry bout it chimera always seems to get away w/ it. hope she doesnt end up as a real killer. none of us would survive lol**

"Game ended?" asked Emmett when PJ went back to his essay.

"Yep. Chimera won again."

PJ's phone lit up again, and PJ smiled at The_Trashman's reply: **no doubt. Ur prob the 1st to point at her though.**

As Emmett spoke, PJ typed, **nah i think FmR and Cif have almost got her before too. i think Xmassacre thought so too but he always kept changing his mind until he was almost the last one**

"I really want to meet that guy. You thinking of going to the meet?"

Emmett opened the other books and took a larger one out of his backpack. He'd always been seen as the "lesser son" (as he put it whenever the put-downs really got to him) by his parents, Mr. Heglin especially. So after junior college, Emmett had begun to really crack down on his studies, though his major was still undeclared. All he knew was that he wanted to prove his dad wrong, show that he really was worth something.

Biting the inside of his cheek, PJ hesitated before turning his phone over to try and keep from getting distracted.

"Don't know," he said after a couple minutes.

When Emmett joined the game, there were usually eighteen in the group if everyone was able to get online.

"Should be pretty epic," said Emmett as he typed. "Caught-in-fragments said his family had a mansion or something, right?"

"You actually believe him?"

Maybe it was his dad rubbing off on him, but PJ tended to be wary of what he put online. He also wasn't sure what he believed, but he'd found out who a few of the others in his Rabbit Doubt group was when they'd given him their BuddyBop usernames.

It had been a hilarious family reunion when PJ found out that Fighting_my_Role was actually Teddy, though it hadn't taken long to figure out that Apple_Addiction was Gabe.

The_Trashman said he lived in California but not much else, but apparently he knew ChimeraExperiment, which was how PJ knew the evil genius was female.

Shrugging, Emmett exhaled softly. "Well, that's why we all planned to meet at The Bean Brew first, right?"

"True."

Several other members of the group also lived in Denver, and those that lived elsewhere had either lived here previously and were meeting with family for the holidays, or they were coming for one reason or another.

Playing-the-Devil had said it sounded like fate, suggesting they all meet somewhere and have a fun day out. The date was set up for next Saturday, and PJ would be done with all of his finals but one.

"How're we supposed to recognize each other again?" Emmett inquired as he leaned back in his chair to crack his spine, breathing out in relief when he did so.

Finishing the paragraph and saving the document, PJ replied, "Besides the rabbit pins we all finally agreed on just getting those disposable nametags with our usernames written on them."

"Heh, everyone else at Double-B's gonna think they walked in on some sort of weird convention."

"At least everyone shot down True Love's idea of dressing up in costume. Well, everyone but Trashman, but he said he probably wouldn't be able to make it anyway."

"Very true. Too bad we won't be able to meet him, though. Sounds like a cool dude."

"Yeah," said PJ as he finally caved and checked his phone.

There was a message from The_Trashman, and Possessed-hand had suggested a new game.

**Can't. Work**, typed ChimeraExpiriment.

**thank god! **wrote Drawing-Kurikara. **maybe we gotta chance now!**

**LOL** was the response of Ah-my-cabbages. **im game if ne1 else is**

Six others accepted, and PJ decided that one more game wouldn't put too big a dent in his study time.

Getting onto the Rabbit Doubt site on his laptop, Emmett said, "Eh, why not? I've been working hard lately. I could use a break."

After a short laugh, PJ put down his cellphone and got onto the site on his laptop, remembering that he was creeping closer to his data limit for the month.

"Wanna team up?" he asked.

Looking up from his screen, Emmett's black plastic-framed glasses slipped down his nose a bit. "What if you're the wolf?"

Smirking, PJ's dancing blue eyes rose to meet his friend's chocolate-brown ones. This _was_ the point of the game after all—doubt.

Unyielding doubt that made each not want to trust the other. Trust was dangerous in a game like this. Trust the wrong player, and death was very well a certainty.

"You don't," PJ finally answered before looking at his screen as the game began to set and choose which one of the rabbits would be the wolf in hiding. "And I don't know if you're the wolf either."

A corner of Emmett's mouth quirked upwards. "Fair enough, but I'll stick to my own guns."

Splitting up and setting off on one's own was how people died in horror films, but what about when staying together seemed like an even surer way to meet an untimely end?

The wolf wielded a considerable amount of power, being able to sit back and watch everyone squabble, fingers pointed all over the place. The wolf could even use that to his or her own advantage, which was how ChimeraExperiment, Christmassacre, and Gabe almost always won. Even when others knew those very tricks, it always seemed to be just so simple to take the truth and twist it—just so—to get the fingers pointing elsewhere and have an innocent hanged.

PJ had learned this by watching the others, using the part of his brain he'd developed during that time he had become obsessed with old detective shows and mysteries. However, he'd only gotten to put that knowledge to work as a rabbit, his knowledge and insight usually earning him the noose.

Not this time.

Making sure to keep the smile off his face, PJ clicked on the start button, under which read the game's tagline: _The liar must die_.

Finally, it was PJ's turn to be the wolf.

_**Close to Halloween now, and I thought this story would be good for the season! :D I've had the idea for a while and finally began writing it down a few weeks ago. I got the idea from reading the manga (it's a two-volume series) Doubt by Yoshiki Tonogai. This story follows its plotline for the most part, and there are also parts from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni by Ryukishi07. This story's different than what I'm used to writing, even including another horror-ish story I'm still trying to work on, so I hope you all enjoy reading this! :)**_


	2. II Meeting

**Chapter 2: The Meeting**

It was amazing how many people in the group were those PJ already knew.

Teddy had already enlisted Vonnie's help to keep Spencer and Bo from tearing at each other's throats, and Ivy was occasionally casting glances towards one of the others to rescue her from Kelsey's motor mouth.

Gabe, who had ridden with PJ, was now sitting with Jake, and a boy their age with Possessed-hand on his nametag joined them, introducing himself as Kevin.

Apparently, Jake also recognized him from Realm of the Tower, congratulating him on something-or-other before saying how sorry he was about the raid by Poodle_Lover152 and StanRoxx from years ago.

PJ didn't really pay too much mind to their conversation but saw Emmett come in, the guy laughing at Ivy's facial expression at whatever Kelsey had just said—something about some guy in one of her classes.

Coming over to the two was a guy that looked to be their age, his dark brown-black hair hanging to just above his broad shoulders. Trailing behind him was a girl that looked to be somewhere between the ages of seven and twelve (PJ could never tell), her dark orange-red corkscrew curls hanging in her face. She seemed to be clutching to the hem of the guy's coat so she wouldn't accidentally run into a wall or chair.

"It's cold!" she complained when her brother stopped. "You're so evil taking us to the park yesterday!"

"You begged me to!" the guy explained, and PJ saw by the nametag that he was Drawing-Kurikara. He turned back to the others and stuck out his free hand, the other holding a cup. "Tyler. This is my little sister Chloe, and my step-sister, Avery, is in the bathroom with her friend, Lindsay, and my future-girlfriend, Nikki."

Taking his hand, the blond guy said, "I'm PJ."

"Emmett." He looked down at Chloe, smiling. "Hey, cutie, why are you keeping your hair in front of your face."

"My face is cold," she answered. She then reached up for her brother's cup. "Chocolate, now! My insides are freezing!"

Rolling his dark brown eyes, Tyler ordered, "Say 'please'."

Enough hair moved out of the way to show that Chloe was pouting.

A boy that looked to be Gabe's age approached, standing with a stance that made PJ wonder if he'd taken ballet.

"The little crumb-snatcher giving you trouble again?"

Whirling around, Chloe crossed her arms and cocked a hip, looking to have forgotten how cold she was.

"Whadd'ya want, Karl?" she demanded before Tyler could ask the same question.

Eyes moving to the nametag on the boy's coat, PJ said, "Ah, so you're Christ Massacre."

Turning his brown eyes to him with an irritated look, Karl corrected, "_Christ_massacre."

He put extra emphasis on the small _I_ sound, as if saying "Christmas".

Karl pivoted on one foot and headed for the table where Gabe, Jake, and Kevin were, Tyler sitting at a nearby table as he handed the hot chocolate he'd been holding to Chloe, who sat next to him. Emmett went to get himself a coffee, and PJ sat down across from Tyler as he watched Gabe nod at the empty seat for Karl to sit in.

Smirking, PJ said, "I give my brother and his friend five minutes before they give that kid a wedgie."

"Can't believe he weaseled himself on our trip," muttered Tyler. "Mom made us take him with us. She blabbed about it while they were having afternoon tea. That's creepy, right?"

"_Definitely_," PJ replied with a nod.

"Good, so it's just my mom who's crazy." He turned to look at the sixteen-year-old boys. "Ugh, Kevin. Which one's your brother?"

"Brown hair. The ginger's his friend, Jake. My brother's name is Gabe, but he goes by Apple Addiction on Rabbit Doubt." PJ pointed towards Teddy. "And that's my sister, Teddy, blonde like me. The girl with brown hair is her friend, Vonnie, and it looks like Spencer, Teddy's ex, and Bo, her current boyfriend have finally decided not to kill each other."

"Bo and Spencer?"

"Short hair, green coat is Spencer. He goes to a college in Boston and is apparently Captured-in-fragments. Longer hair with the black sweater is Bo. He's from Tennessee and works for my dad. He's apparently Chi Chakra."

"Huh." Tyler's eyes moved towards Ivy and Kelsey. "Ooh, looks like a girl fight might break out."

"Break out the beans and chili!" exclaimed Chloe, pumping a fist into the air.

Looking down at her, Tyler commented, "Okay, maybe Dad's right and we _should_ have some blocked channels."

PJ laughed, thanking Emmett when he offered him a gingerbread latte. "Wouldn't be much of a fight. Probably mostly screaming on Kelsey's part. She's the skinnier one with long curly hair."

Emmett laughed, seeming to catch on to what they were talking about.

"Yeah, and it'd take _all_ of us to pull Ivy off of her. That girl could put the fear of God into the entire football team," he said. "I think she actually _did_ do that back when she was a freshman, actually."

Tyler laughed at that. "Avery can be the same way sometimes. And it looks like Ivy's Unregistered Death Scythe and Kelsey's Awesome Hero. Huh, she doesn't look as dim as she sounds online."

Looking up at her brother, Chloe raised her eyebrows. "_You're_ calling someone dim? _Your_ lightbulb's been needing changing since before I was even born!" She looked at the other two. "Can one of you tell me how that works? Mommy and Daddy keep saying 'when you're older' and I turn eleven in four months!"

Tyler's face went to his hands as PJ choked on his latte and Emmett spilt some of the sugar he was pouring into his coffee.

Wiping his mouth, PJ was about to speak when a chair toppled over. The blond college student turned his head to look, seeing Gabe on his feet, dark brown eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

"_Jo_?!" he shouted, everyone else turning to look at him.

Blinking in surprise, PJ followed his brother's gaze to the blonde girl wearing an unbuttoned purple coat, showing a dark blue button-up shirt and a striped tie.

Her wide eyes were trained on the boy, her pink lips parted. On one side was a girl that looked her age, her dark brown curls hanging down to her waist. Her dark eyes kept going back-and-forth between the boy and girl in question, the older girl that looked closer to PJ's age looking over to Tyler for help.

Not having the hindering tact of the others, Chloe announced, "Her name's not Jo! It's Avery!" She set down her hot chocolate and trotted over to the three other girls, taking the blonde's hand. "She's my sister. And if you're planning something, boy, you'll haf'ta go through _me_!"

Blinking quickly and looking like she was getting over the initial shock, Jo/Avery patted her step-sister on the head, looking to be trying to placate her.

"Hey, Gabe," she said, getting closer to the boys' table.

Blinking in surprise, Gabe still looked confused. From what PJ remembered, Jo rarely referred to any of them by their actual names. She had usually preferred "stupid", "doofus", or another word of similar meaning.

"I go by Avery," the girl continued, looking very nervous, as if some big secret were getting out and she was scrambling to keep it hidden. "Joanne's my middle name."

"Why'd he call you 'Jo'?" asked Chloe.

"It's what my dad—my other dad—called me," Avery replied. "So that's what I went by when I used to live here."

"My other dad" had been said quickly, which told PJ that she probably called her step-dad "Dad" rather than by his first name like he usually heard from his other friends with step-parents. He didn't know anything about her home condition, and PJ suddenly remembered that he didn't even know her last name or even what "Jo" had been short for.

A look came over Karl's face that made PJ's mouth twitched, his hands curling into fists in his lap. He would need to stay calm, though, especially when it looked like Gabe might be currently debating whether to punch the dark-haired guy now or later.

"'Jo', huh? Jo the Graham Cracker Stealer. Oh! And it's true that you _are_ Chimera Experiment. I should have figured when I was your first victim last time."

The smug look on the kid's face really got under PJ's skin, and he was definitely not the only one.

"Stuff it, Karl!" yelled Avery at the same time Tyler took hold of one of the boy's shoulders, forcing him to spin around.

"You know what? I really _do_ have half a mind—"

Refusing to stand down, Karl quipped, "Oh, so you got more! An early Christmas gift, perhaps?"

Hands on her hips, Chloe exclaimed, "Big talk for the loser that thought a dog was helping him win a math competition!"

Avery smirked as Tyler gave his youngest sister a high-five, Gabe chuckling. Karl's face turned red, and Nikki clapped her gloved hands once, strained smile showing that she didn't want a fight breaking out, especially with the owner watching them carefully now.

"How about we all talk about the holiday!" she said in an accent that reminded PJ of Tina and Nina, the twins from El Salvador he and Emmett had dated for almost a week back in high school.

"Sounds good," Tyler announced, looking ready to agree with anything Nikki suggested.

He then turned his eyes to Karl, thick eyebrows moving upwards.

"Fine with you?" he asked in a loaded voice.

Plopping back down into his chair, Karl amazingly stayed silent and only gave a nod.

"Awesome!" cheered Kelsey, pumping her arms up. She got up and turned to the owner and barista behind the counter. "Mr. Singer, do ya mind if we push the tables together so we can all talk?"

Looking calm now, Mr. Singer gave a nod. "Sure. Just put them back when you're done. There's a slam tonight."

"Sure!"

Kelsey started pushing her table towards Teddy's, some of the others helping out.

The tables were pushed into a circular shape so everyone would be able to better-see everyone else, but there were only sixteen players there, The_Trashman unable to make it and Leek-spin-beats-bombs was running late.

Once everyone had a drink or snack, they began to speak civilly and got to know one-another (well, those that did not _already_ know each other), Spencer saying that the mansion was real. His family travelled to Aspen annually, and his paternal grandparents owned a mansion in Snowmass Valley, which had been passed down to his grandfather by his father and his father before him.

There would be plenty of rooms, and his grandparents would be heading over to their rented cabin in Aspen with Spencer's parents, aunts, and uncles this Christmas, so they'd have the place to themselves for the week Spencer had first suggested over the chat.

Leaning forward so that his forearms rested on the table, Bo looked ready to pick a fight. "So _you're_ the rich kid. Shoulda known."

One hand on the back of his chair as he leaned forward, Spencer looked ready to take on Bo if he had to, even though he was on the opposite side of the circle with Vonnie on one side and Kevin on the other.

"Oh, so now you have a problem with my family's status," he said in a too-calm voice, chin up and dark brown eyes unblinking.

Ignoring whatever Teddy had whispered, Bo responded, "I have a problem with you buyin' friends."

The kind, good-ol'-country-boy smile stayed on his face, though he wasn't blinking either.

"Shut up, Sallies!" piped up Chloe before eating a bite of the cheesecake Tyler had gotten her.

Avery eyed it as if thinking that her step-sister shouldn't be having sweets right now.

"Yeah," said Lindsay, fixing the pink-and-black fedora atop her head. "No more fighting! This week in a mansion sounded fun, but I don't know anymore."

She had been speaking quickly with enough excitement for the rest of them before, but her words were a little slower this time, as if the negative energy were wearing her down.

Teddy nodded. "I agree. Bo, I'm with _you_, so there is _no_ reason to keep this up." She looked over at her ex, tawny-brown eyes pleading. "And you shouldn't need to fight back. I'm sorry Spencer, and I know we said that being friends would be too hard, but this game apparently didn't know that. Anyway, if we're going to do this, we're going to have to be able to not kill each other, 'kay?"

PJ gave a nod, agreeing with his sister. "Yeah. We can't just spend the week going at each other's throats, right?"

He looked from Bo, to Spencer, then Karl, Gabe, Avery, Tyler, and Ivy.

Sitting back so that he was pretty much just slumping in his seat now, Bo only looked up at Spencer for a moment. "Only for a week, I guess, right?"

Relaxing, the once-jock and current music major heaved a sigh and nodded. "Yeah, just a week."

Everyone slowly began to agree, and Emmett got up to get a refill on his coffee once the conversation turned civil again.

Stopping, Emmett nudged PJ on the shoulder. "Dude."

"Wha—"

"Skylar?" called Gabe, looking up at the door.

Heart nearly stopping, PJ nearly knocked over his now-empty cup getting up as he whirled around to look at the door.

Wearing a knee-length pink-red coat and white mittens was the girl PJ had lost contact with over three years ago when she had left for a mission trip in Egypt. Her hair was shorter and dyed black now, but there was no mistaking those innocent, chocolate-brown eyes.

"Hi, PJ!" she exclaimed in a cheery voice, chapped pink lips curving into a smile. "Been a while, huh?"

"Yeah," replied PJ as Skylar approached, Gabe speaking as he got up to get more coffee:

"What should have been first-time meetings turned into a giant reunion."

"Should make for an interesting week," said Lindsay, sounding to want things to stay calm.

PJ pulled out the empty chair next to where he'd been sitting, eyes still on Skylar. "Very."

_**Interesting week indeed. Well, you've now met all the players, and the horror should be underway soon. (And, yes, if you've guessed, The_Trashman couldn't show because he's Stan.)**_


	3. III The Owl Cries

**Chapter 3: The Owl Cries**

Four cars needed to be taken, PJ driving his Lantern in front of Tyler's borrowed minivan with Spencer's borrowed Escapade somewhere ahead of him and Bo taking the rear in the CR-V his aunt Karen had let him take for the week.

"Ooh!" sang Skylar from the passenger seat, looking out the window as they passed a lone, crumbling house on the side of the road. "An owl!"

"I thought they only came out at night," said Gabe from the back, looking very uncomfortable between Jake and Kevin—he'd lost Rock, Paper, Scissors and had given up trying to explain Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock to Jake.

Glancing to the right just long enough to catch a glimpse of the owl perched atop the house's roof. The building had looked like the next snowstorm would make the roof cave in, but the owl's coal-colored eyes seemed to have met PJ's causing a shiver run down his spine.

He squashed the feeling, telling himself he was being silly. It was just an owl.

"It's so pretty," Skylar continued, playing with a lock of her shoulder length hair. "Its face looked kind of like a heart. I think they're named after some sort of big building. You see them in those places you see cows and horses…"

"A _barn_?" Gabe asked, and through the rearview mirror, PJ could see him making that face that said he thought she was stupid. It was a look PJ now clearly recognized from many times in the past, and he didn't like seeing it directed at Skylar.

Skylar's eyes went to the ceiling of the car. "No… That's not it."

PJ smiled, thinking Skylar was so cute and how she hadn't changed. It made him see how much _he_ had changed since they'd been together.

Checking the rearview mirror before moving to the other lane to speed past the too-slow truck, PJ saw Kevin mouth, "Are you _kidding_ me?" with slow and exaggerated movements of his thin lips.

Right behind Skylar, Jake had a far-away look in his light green-blue eyes as if trying to think of what kind of owl it was.

There was still some ways to go, and it looked like it was going to start snowing again soon, PJ slowing down when he could see the silver Escapade not far ahead. He was always wary of driving during rain and snow.

"Can we at least change the music?" Gabe questioned, looking like it had been taking all of his willpower to not complain the entire way.

"Okay, fine," replied PJ. "Just pass up your phone. Skye, you mind?"

Blinking as she was stirred out of wherever it was her mind tended to go, Skylar asked, "I mind what?"

Before PJ could answer, Gabe said, "Unplug PJ's phone and plug mine in. Pandora app."

"Okay!"

Skylar did as asked, and Gabe's music began to play, Skylar putting PJ's cellphone into the glove box. She then took hers out of the front pocket of her white hoodie (her coat was on the floor over her feet and purse).

"It's from Ivy," she announced, still sounding blissful, which often seemed to be her standard emotion. "Spencer says we're not too far from Snowmass Valley now. We'll stop for gas and then go the rest of the way to the mansion."

There was still the tiniest of cracks in Skylar's voice when she said Spencer's name that only PJ seemed to notice. He still held animosity towards Spencer for what he'd done to Skylar and Teddy, though both had long-ago said they forgave him. Teddy obviously had, though he'd been on basically a probationary period when they'd dated for the first few months to show that he was truly dedicated to Teddy and only her.

"Aw, man!" Jake exclaimed as Kevin chuckled.

"You guys playing Rabbit Doubt back there?" PJ inquired.

"Yeah, and I just got hung!" Jake complained. He looked over at the other player. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Dude, you were just sitting there giggling," laughed Kevin. "Either you were the wolf or you have the weirdest fetish I have ever heard of."

"You're name's 'Possessed hand'," Gabe said with a chuckle. "Something tells me you've heard of weirder fetishes."

Shaking his head and turning on the windshield wipers, PJ requested, "Can we not talk about fetishes in my car?"

Tapping at the screen of her cellphone, Skylar said, "Ooh, I love cheese fetishes with cherries. I get them all the time at Starbucks."

Kevin doubled over as he guffawed as Jake fell over to where his head was on Gabe's shoulder due to his chortling. PJ only groaned, Skylar looking up from her phone with her thin eyebrows raised in question.

Before she could ask anything, Gabe told her, "I think you mean 'Danishes'."

Thinking for a moment, Skylar smiled shyly. "Oh, yeah." She looked back at her Blackberry and frowned. "Puke in a picnic basket…"

"What's wrong?" asked PJ, Kevin answering for Skylar when he was done laughing:

"Crap. Service is getting spotty."

"You got the newest update?" Gabe inquired, looking over at his new friend's mobile.

"Yeah, downloaded it last week."

"Mine won't connect either," Jake huffed. He huffed and put his cellphone away, and the music began to skip, so Gabe reached forward to change it to his normal playlist instead of using Pandora.

"We should be getting there soon," PJ promised, "and we can play Mafia or something like that."

Gabe nodded. "We played that at gym sometimes, remember Jake?"

Looking excited now, the redhead nodded. "Ah, yeah! It's like Retro Rabbit Doubt!"

Shrugging, Kevin stuck his mobile into the pocket of his navy-blue coat. "I'm game."

"Sounds like fun," Skylar agreed, smiling wide.

At the mansion, the space left in the garage was large enough for Spencer's and PJ's cars, but the other two had to be parked on the driveway, Spencer retrieving tarps for them.

"Wow," Tyler breathed, eyes wide as he stared at the house. "And I thought our house was pretty big."

"It's huge!" exclaimed Chloe through her hair and huge purple scarf, and the dog standing next to her barked as if to punctuate what she'd said.

"Yes, beautiful," said Nikki. "May we now go in? It is _freezing_ out here."

Again, the dog, Stan, barked, giving a soft whine as he walked in a circle, looking anxious to get his paws off of the cold concrete. The landscaper had been here earlier to have the driveway and walkways shoveled, but the rest of the place looked like Stan would end up getting stuck if he tried to prance in the white wonderland.

"I concur," said Karl. "I'm colder than when my mother took me into the nearby butcher's freezer to punch some of the hanging racks of beef."

Jake laughed at that. "I think that's the funniest thing I've heard you say." His voice sounded clipped due to chattering teeth, the party moving into the garage to enter the manor, lugging their luggage behind them.

Turning, Karl's face looked grim and just a little green. "Oh, if only I were kidding."

The group entered the laundry room, where they began to peel off their coats and take off their boots, Spencer closing the garage door. He grunted as Vonnie let out a "Hey!" as Stan bounded out of the room to go explore.

"Sorry about him," said Avery. "He gets excited about new places."

Nikki shook snowflakes out of her waist length, caramel-brown hair. "Oh, I wish I have brought Evita so Stan could have a friend to play with."

"He doesn't need Evita," said Chloe, yanking off her boots before chasing after Stan, barking.

Looking over at Tyler, Avery raised her eyebrows. "I forget. She _did_ turn _ten_ this past April, right?"

Tyler shrugged. "Dad's a child psychologist. One of us was _bound_ to be messed up."

"Only one?" snorted Karl, earning twin glowers.

Spencer led the group into the spacious den, pointing out where various rooms were.

"Down here is the master bedroom, which has a king-sized bed as well as a futon, so two or three people can stay there. There are also two guest bedrooms on the first floor, but if you really want a single, downstairs are the old servants' quarters from when my great-granddad had a staff."

Bo scoffed, but Teddy rubbed his arm to remind him there was no more use trying to compete, and Spencer ignored him.

"How big would those rooms be?" Karl inquired, hands behind his back as he walked with an erect spine, looking like he thought he was in Buckingham Palace rather than a manor in Colorado.

"Um… The largest one that used to house the head servant is about the size of my dorm room, so not much more than enough for the cot and your suitcase."

"I call head servant room then!" Karl called, chin going up.

_Entitled prick_, thought PJ as they all reached the den.

Spencer allowed for everyone to battle out who would be sleeping where and with whom, and once everything was finally settled, he had the fire going, adding more blissful heat.

Downstairs, Teddy, Vonnie, Kelsey, and Ivy would room with one-another in the master bedroom while Avery, Lindsay, and Chloe took one of the guestrooms. Nikki and Skylar would take the other, and Karl could room by himself, though it wouldn't be in the old head servant's room—that one would be occupied by Tyler, who had won the Rock, Paper, Scissors match.

Jake and Kevin would get the other two servants' quarters in the basement, and PJ would room with Spencer in an upstairs guest room while Emmett would room with Bo.

Gabe, who had been the first to win the Rock, Paper, Scissors match, would get to be by himself in the final guest room upstairs, but he said he wouldn't mind if Stan stayed with him if everyone else was cramped.

"How generous," said Avery sarcastically, tagging an eye-roll to go with it. "He'll probably stay with me."

As if hearing, barking (both canine and little girl) could be heard from upstairs.

Spencer looked up after feeding another log into the fire. "Must be in the solar."

"Seriously?" This time, it was Teddy speaking. "This place has a freaking _solar_?"

Nodding, Spencer replied, "Great-great granddad's idea, apparently. He liked being of high class, and Granddad says he liked to refer to himself as a lord."

"So this was almost a great hall," said Avery, looking around the room. "If he'd had the house built out of stone, we could have had a _Game of Thrones_ themed party. Stan would have liked being our direwolf."

"Unfortunately, there're no hot springs nearby that could have heated up the walls," Spencer joked.

"The hell is a solar?" asked Jake as PJ went to help Bo, Emmett, and Tyler drag in some chairs from the dining room, which was to the right of the large fireplace and directly opposite of the front double-doors.

"Kinda like a second dining room-slash-family room but there's also a fireplace, a giant painting, this epitaph—I can explain about that later, so don't ask—and a few bookcases," answered Spencer. "When we'd come here when I was a kid, that was where we'd eat on Thanksgiving or Christmas day. There's also a smaller room right by it, where the kids would eat."

Jake still looked a little confused but nodded, and everyone got the chairs set up, Spencer and Emmett moving the couch so they could all sit in a circle. PJ sat on the couch along with Emmett and Spencer, and Gabe looked to be making himself comfortable in dark grey easy chair.

"So, Mafia?" PJ suggested. "I mentioned it to Gabe, Jake, Kevin, and Skye in the car."

"I think that sounds cool," said Tyler, looking up when something sounded like it fell over upstairs. "Chloe! Be careful! Pretty sure we're not rich enough to replace anything!" He looked at Spencer, who was several spaces to his right. "Sorry, man."

Chuckling, Spencer waved him off. "It's fine. My grandparents had all the most expensive stuff put away into the closets and storage. Don't trust us, apparently."

Trading the high-backed dining room chair she'd originally been sitting in for the suede-topped stool Lindsay had originally claimed, Avery retorted, "They don't trust a bunch of adolescents and young adults? Why that's unheard of!"

"At least they trust us enough with their house," offered Ivy, frowning as she watched Kelsey out of the corner of her eye. "Will you stop being so freaking happy all the time? It freaks me out!"

Blinking, Kelsey said, "But everyone should be able to be happy all the time!"

"Hey!" called out Teddy, using the tone she often used to try and calm down a situation. "Kelsey just contradicted you—"

Gasping, Kelsey leaned over towards Ivy. "I'm so sorry, Ivy! You were right. I guess I can creep some people out sometimes."

Tyler turned towards Vonnie, whose brown eyes widened at the attention. "She always like that?"

"U-uh…" She seemed choked up, and Tyler began to look uncomfortable due to the way she stared at him.

"Yes," Teddy answered for her. "Vonnie." She whistled, getting her friend's attention. "Yeah, down girl."

"Is she your friend or your dog?" Lindsay questioned, gathering her chestnut-brown curls back in a low ponytail to drape over one shoulder. She was the closest to the fireplace now and looked pleasantly warm.

As Vonnie looked over at the sixteen-year-old with a knit brow and open mouth, Skylar gushed, "Ooh, there's another doggy here?"

Eyes rolled up to the ceiling, Avery exclaimed, "Is there _anyone_ in this room capable of passing a state-certified test?"

"How 'bout we just start the game," Bo suggested, projecting his voice. He unzipped his sweater and tossed it onto the cream-colored carpet behind him.

"Great idea," said Spencer, finally agreeing with the exterminator on something. "There's supposed to be a story-teller, a cop, and a doctor along with the killer, right?"

"Yeah," PJ replied, remembering the game clearly. "I remember when we played, we figured out who was who with a deck of cards. Ace of spades was the killer, ace of hearts was the doctor, ace of diamonds was the story-teller, and ace of clubs was the cop."

Tyler smiled. "Sounds good to me. Reminds me of summer camp from when I was little."

"Anyone brought a deck of cards?" Kevin inquired.

"In my suitcase," replied Gabe, getting up. "I'll get them. No one kill each other before I get back."

"'Cause you want to watch." Avery inspected her nails, one foot bouncing.

"Of course! Someone's gotta keep track on the bets!"

As Gabe headed towards the laundry room, an ear-piercing screech could be heard from outside the front door, making everyone jump.

"Shit!" "Mother—" "Goddamn!" "Oh God that scared—" "You guys hear—" "Hell is that?!" "—shit outta—" "Puke in a—" "Lordy!"

Their voices were a cacophony that echoed through the mansion, making Stan bark as Chloe yelled something about peace needing to be kept in Chloeopolis.

"Hey!" exclaimed Kelsey, sitting to where she directly faced one of the windows next to the double-doors. "That an owl?"

"It's still daytime, though!" argued Avery as Skylar cooed, "Ooh, maybe it's the same one from before, PJ!"

The owl gave one last screech before flying off, wings silent as the surrounding whiteness.


	4. IV Letter from the Witch

**Chapter 4: Letter from the Witch**

After thirteen rounds of Mafia with PJ having gotten to be the story-teller twice, the killer once, and the cop once, the sun had kissed the western hemisphere good-bye some time ago, and everyone was growing hungry. Jake had suggested ordering pizza, but the snow had been steadily coming down harder, and the mansion was too far out to order pizza anyway (not without tipping the delivery guy a couple Benjamins, anyway).

"We got stuff in the kitchen to _make_ pizza," Spencer said with a shrug. "I'm not too bad at cooking."

"Of course you're not," Bo muttered.

"Don't start," Teddy begged as Kelsey and Nikki offered to help.

"I can help too," said PJ, Tyler offering his services as well as he smiled at Nikki.

Rolling her eyes, Avery told him, "Nice try, lover boy, but we should check on Chloe."

"I'm sure St—_Ow_!"

Lips rolled inward, Avery had stomped on her step-brother's foot, making him squeak in agreement. Others looked at them questionably, though Nikki and Lindsay shrugged it off as if used to that sort of interaction.

Those with cooking ability headed for the large kitchen as Tyler and Avery headed for the staircase, which was by the bedrooms. The rest stayed in the den and played some card games, Gabe keeping Karl occupied by betting he probably wouldn't be able to keep up in a few rounds of King Mao.

Going over to the huge stainless steel refrigerator, Spencer announced, "Tons of cheese, sausage, bacon, pepperoni—"

"I am vegetarian," Nikki interrupted. "Avery has been trying to stay on a vegetarian diet as well."

"Teddy too," said PJ. "Skye might or not, I don't know. She used to go back and forth."

Spencer looked through some drawers. "We got olives, onions, lettuce, tomatoes…" He turned to look at the four others. "Eight pizzas? Two supremes with everything on it, two vegetarians, two meat-atarians, and then two plain cheeses?"

"Mm…" Kelsey clapped, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. "Sounds so good. I can't wait!"

Several people were complaining about hunger by the time the pizzas were done, and Tyler finally dragged Chloe out of the fort she'd made for herself and Stan in a room connected to the solar. Avery had packed her dog's food- and water bowls, but Stan had looked at her with an almost sad look before slinking into the laundry room with a low tail.

As everything was being prepared, the suitcases had been moved into the appropriate rooms, and Spencer explained about the third story room when Chloe asked about the spiral staircase in the solar.

"It's always locked," Spencer explained as cups were set out, Bo and PJ helping Teddy and Ivy put the chairs back. "Suzanne and I got in big trouble when we tried to pick the lock when we were kids."

Bringing in a two-liter bottle of Pepsi and a gallon container of Hawaiian Punch, Skylar inquired, "Is Suzanne a cousin?"

To just about everyone else, the question sounded innocent, but PJ heard the barbs hiding underneath the sweet voice. Teddy and Gabe both caught on as well but said nothing.

Clearing his throat, Spencer nodded, and PJ almost felt bad for him. The guy really did look remorseful and seemed to wish to be able to take back that mistake in his life.

"Yeah," he replied. "My uncle Larson's oldest. We're close in age and hang out a lot when the family gets together."

After everyone sat down to eat, Chloe got herself a slice of cheese pizza and asked Spencer, "Is the lady in the painting upstairs staying in the locked room?"

Pouring himself some Mountain Dew, Spencer looked over at her quizzically. "Huh? The painting next to the fireplace?"

Mouth full, the little redhead nodded. "With the really weird poem on the other side."

"Oh, I saw that," said Avery, getting herself a slice of vegetarian pizza. "It talked about 'rules', so I thought it might be a riddle, but it's really weird, and I couldn't figure it out what it meant."

"Yes!" cheered Tyler. "Something The Great Avery doesn't know!"

Karl poured himself some juice. "Hmm… Maybe I should take a crack at it then. No doubt I should be able to come to its answer when the Cracker Snatcher couldn't."

"Will you let that go?" exclaimed Avery, lips pursed and brow knit in deep irritation.

Chloe's hazel-brown eyes stayed on Spencer's, the girl waiting for an answer.

Eyes moving to the ceiling for a moment, Spencer look to be in thought before he finally gave his response: "Granddad used to tell us stories about this witch that supposedly lived in the mountains. Her name—"

"I already know her name!" the youngest of the nineteen interrupted. "She told me."

Looking over towards Tyler, who sat between Nikki and Emmett, Avery's lips thinned. She seemed to be sending her brother a message, and PJ wondered what it was. It had to do with when they'd gone upstairs to retrieve their sibling, and he then remembered the comment back at the Bean Brew about her immaturity.

Could she have been imagining things? It was an old house, after all, and the snow was falling heavier now, isolating them even more than they already have been.

Setting down her pizza, Chloe rubbed her hands on her jeans (making Avery protest about stains, a remark that made Gabe raise his eyebrows at her in question). The girl then reached into the large, front pocket of her Rainbow Dash hoodie. She took out a parchment envelope with a dark red wax seal, Spencer reaching for it with wide, confused (and worried?) eyes.

"The hell?" he mouthed once the envelope was in his hands.

Sitting to Spencer's right, PJ leaned over, noticing that the seal was marked with the image of what looked like a winged serpent, body curved so its tail nearly touched its mouth, small, angular wings pointed into the center.

Picking her pizza back up, Chloe said, "I asked her if she wanted to be a citizen of Chloeopolis, but she said she just wanted to give me that for you all to read. She said her name's Tabitha, and she was looking for the key for the upstairs study place. Is she staying there?"

Bo's brown eyes narrowed in suspicion, arms crossing over his chest. "I thought there was no one else here."

"There isn't," Spencer swore, tone earnest.

Vonnie's eyes widened, and she set down her cup due to her hand starting to shake. "There's someone hiding in the house?"

"Come on!" interjected Ivy. "The little girl's just seeing things."

"No I'm not!" Chloe yelled. "No one ever listens to me!"

"Ah-ha!" Karl jutted a finger towards the little girl, then Avery, then Tyler. "The Crimson Crumb Snatcher said that exact same thing when you tricked me about that 'Stan's deep, dark secret' nonsense!"

Avery nearly knocked her chair over when she jumped up to her feet. "You think we set her up?!"

"Just everyone calm down," PJ tried as Karl got to his feet as well.

"The three of you were the only ones upstairs except for that dog of yours. Unless you're going to try and say now he can transform into some mysterious woman."

"Sit down, Sweater Vest," Ivy ordered as Tyler cried, "That's ridiculous! Even for us!"

"Tyler, you're not helping!" shouted Avery as Karl directed his finger towards the eldest of the James children.

"Ah-ha! You don't deny—"

"Will you stop?!" cried Lindsay, getting to her feet as well.

"They're not trying to do anything," Kevin defended, trying to get Karl to sit back down.

"Stay out of this!" Avery roared, the flash in her eyes showing that something had happened between her and Kevin in the past.

"Hey," said Kevin, "I'm just trying to help!"

"Well _don't_!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Getting to his feet, Gabe bellowed, "Just everybody _shut the hell up_!"

Finally, the dining room cut to silence, those on their feet slowly lowering themselves back into their high-backed chairs.

"Well, what does the letter say?" Skylar asked, looking to be one of the few remaining calm.

While others had been arguing, Spencer had been reading the letter, PJ having been watching his eyebrows come together and thin lips get rolled in before he frowned deeply and then simply made his face neutral.

Standing up, Spencer read the letter out loud, his voice seeming to echo as the crackling of the fire provided the perfect backdrop along with the stark contrast of the darkness of the sky and whiteness of the snow washed even whiter by moonlight. The curtains of the long window in front of PJ had been tied back, and he could see the storage house in the back, looking like a blot on a white sheet.

"'Guests of the house of my late master'," Spencer read, voice clear, "'welcome. For three generations, I have awaited a group such as yours, and please do well to make my wait worthwhile. You do not want to disappoint a witch'—"

"_Witch_?" Ivy questioned with a voice that said she was done with this game.

Chloe sat up in her seat, looking excited. "Uh-huh! She said she made a deal with Spencer's great-great-grandpa!"

"Sounds fun!" Kelsey cheered. "And Ivy said this week was gonna be boring."

"Just keep reading," Teddy told Spencer. "Before people start fighting again."

Swallowing, Spencer nodded, and PJ's eyes went back to the window as he listened:

"'I have been told that it is games you all enjoy, so, please, do help yourself to the epitaph in the solar opposite of my portrait. The clock has begun ticking since my letter was delivered. Now, I hope you shall entertain me. The centuries have left me quite bored. Always, Tabitha, Witch of the Mountains.'"

Ivy was the first to speak: "Oh you've _got_ to be kidding me."

Looking over to Chloe, Bo took on a really sweet voice, his Southern accent deepening. "Sweetheart, where'd you find that letter? The truth, this time, if you please."

"I already told you!" Chloe was frowning now, looking annoyed. "Tabitha gave me that letter!"

She made a sound that sounded like a mix of a shriek and growl, pushing herself away from the table and running towards guest rooms past the den.

Exhaling loudly, Avery got up. "I got her."

She headed after her sister, and Stan barked once before loping after them, slowing down once he reached the teenage girl's side.

"So who's this Tabitha person supposed to be?" asked Kevin, trying to get things back on track. His eyes flicked over to Karl for a second as well, looking like he just knew that he'd try to make another accusation towards the James-Jennings siblings if allowed to do so.

Handing the letter over to Gabe to pass to Bo when he reached for it, Spencer replied, "My granddad used to tell me and my cousins about her. Apparently, my great-great-granddad made some sort of deal, like the letter said, to gain money and a high status, since his parents had come to America really poor, constantly moving trying to find work."

Bo chuckled as he scanned the letter with a sparkle to his eye PJ couldn't interpret.

"So your money came from a deal with the devil, huh?"

"Nah, it was a witch, apparently," Emmett joked.

Shaking his head, Spencer said, "It was just some story to scare us. Apparently part of the deal was that Tabitha was free to take the souls of his descendents or something like that, but she's unable to 'touch the souls of the truly pure' or something. Like I said, a story to keep us from causing trouble."

Ivy waved at him in mock-sweetness. "Nice knowing ya, Spencie-wensie."

The look on Spencer's face showed that he was not amused, making PJ think that like many small children, he had once truly believed the stories—and even though he waved it all off now, some of that childhood fear still lingered.

"So this story's just with your family?" asked Vonnie, eyes on her plate when she spoke to Spencer.

Picking apart the crust of her pizza slice, Skylar asked, "I'm confused. Is there someone else here or not? And what game are we supposed to play? Not puzzles, right? I'm not good at them."

"Ooh, who would've thought," muttered Karl sarcastically, and PJ smiled when Ivy smacked him upside the head.

"What's an epitha?" asked Jake, looking even more puzzled than Skylar. He'd been spending this time finishing the rest of one of the meat pizzas.

"Epitaph," Teddy corrected. "It's like an obituary, basically."

Her palm hit her forehead when Jake only looked more confused.

Sighing, Gabe explained, "Something people write for dead people."

"In a nutshell, yes," Teddy continued.

"Wait," said Skylar. "There are nuts now? I thought there was ice cream for dessert. It doesn't have nuts, right? I'm aller-getic."

Smiling, Nikki reached over the table to take Skylar's hand. "It is a good thing you're pretty."

"Aw, thank you!" replied Skylar happily. "People tell me that a lot."

"Me too!" gushed Kelsey, hands clutching over her heart before she reached for Skylar's hands, having to stand to do so. "Sisters!"

Standing up as well, Skylar took Kelsey's hands and smiled wide. "Yay! I've never had a sister! Are you aller-getic to nuts too? Maybe it runs in the family."

Having to lean over to look around Kelsey to meet PJ's eyes, Gabe mouthed, "_Really_?"

Bo set the letter down onto the table. "Let's go see this obituary then. Upstairs, right?"

Spencer nodded, and everyone but Ivy, Jake, Nikki, and Kevin got up.

"Go ahead," said Ivy. "I'm not interested in any of this witch business."

Skylar rounded the table and grabbed Kelsey's hands. "I wanna stay here and talk to my new sister!"

Kelsey smiled. "Good idea! You all go ahead and play that game."

Vonnie headed for the kitchen. "I'll stay down here to and get some ice cream."

"Grab some for me!" called Jake around a mouth full of pizza. "Five scoops! Chocolate! Ooh! Or rocky road if there's some."

The rest moved into the den towards the staircase on the wall opposite of the fireplace, near the bedrooms.

Walking right behind Spencer, who led the way, Bo suggested, "After we see this thing, we should probably check out this third story room."

"It'll be locked," Spencer replied in a low voice, sounding tired and troubled.

Bo blew air out of his nose as if about to laugh, though PJ heard no humor.

"Convenient," he muttered.


	5. V Witch's Rules

**Chapter 5: Witch's Rules**

A dining table that matched the one downstairs was in the solar, but it had a bench along each of the long sides and ornate chairs at the head and foot.

The staircase had led them on the side with the restroom, toilet (the room with the toilet and sink was separate from the room with the shower and bath), and guestrooms, and the group had needed to cross the hall/balcony that looked over the den into the solar, a long fireplace on the back wall with the spiral staircase on the left.

PJ stayed by the spiral staircase with Lindsay, Tyler, and Nikki, the four staring at the tall painting of the alleged witch.

**Tabitha, Witch of the Mountains** was etched into a small, gold-colored plate beneath the painting, which was surrounded in a golden frame, the designs like leaves and flowers, thorn-covered vines weaving around them.

"She's pretty," Nikki commented, taking a small step to the side when Tyler tried to put his arm around her small waist.

"She is," Lindsay agreed with a nod. "In a cold, 'touch me and I'll smite you' sorta way…"

Tabitha was depicted leaning back in a chair with a golden frame and red cushion. One hand gently held a pomegranate in her lap as the other held onto a long, black stick with a golden pipe-like part at the end, smoke rising from the hole. The woman's gaze was cast downward, chin up and head tilted somewhat. It was as if she saw those that wished to immortalize her as no higher than maggots.

Her blood-red lips were not exactly in a scowl—she had the look of one that saw herself as too high-class to allow such a look cross her face—but they were parted ever so slightly, as if she were ready to whisper some deep secret.

Turning around, PJ could see into the room that held a billiards table as well as several suspended shelves and a couple chairs pushed along the wall. Draped over the large table covered in red velvet were blankets with the corners tied to create a roof of sorts. There were also many pillows and sheets creating walls, and the sight of such a childish haven sitting opposite of the opposing painting made PJ smile.

"That must be Chloeopolis," he said with a chuckle.

Tyler laughed. "Yeah, Chloe loves building forts. Once she made one in the kitchen and 'waged war' on our mom and dad to 'conquer' the living room."

"Guys," Teddy called from the opposite end of the fireplace, standing with the others in front of the stone tablet that was about five to six feet long with the epitaph carved into it. "Wanna help?"

"How does this even make any sense?" Karl questioned, obviously aggravated that he couldn't figure it out.

PJ walked over to the others, standing next to Gabe. He'd never been very good at riddles, which was why he hadn't really bothered trying to figure it out. He'd only come up due to curiosity, having heard of Tabitha from somewhere.

The stone looked like maybe granite or marble (PJ couldn't tell the difference), and it was carved in a way that the letters stood up, the surrounding stone an inch or so lower.

_The winged wise one, surrounded by black is a guide to help you seek what I lack.  
__His screech sends terror through poor hearts, so let courage be what sets you apart.  
__There you will find Hecate's rest; those that choose correctly will be eternally blessed.  
__Somewhere hidden, there is a key; find and use it, and you have bested me._

_Here are the rules, my high law; break even one, and from my mercy, you do withdraw:  
__After the first twilight has past, offer four, the sacrifice at last.  
__Before the second midnight has parted, give up two broken-hearted.  
__Upon the twilight numbered three, those who remain shall bow to me.  
__Upon the twilight four, life, from one's belly, shall pour.  
__Night five now, so try your best, or be the one gouged through the chest.  
__The sixth night thus brings a chill; I ask then to hit the head and kill.  
__Seventh night, you still don't see, so one is gouged through the knee.  
__The eighth twilight you all then beg, but still the blood pours from the leg.  
__This ninth twilight, I am revived, and no more shall you remain alive.  
__This leaves for the game to end; see whether your fates have been penned._

_If, before twilight nine do you win, into those golden gates, shall you be let in._

_All treasures of old, could be yours to uphold.  
__All lives that were lost, will come back at my cost.  
__Enjoy this game, little ones; and my rules, dare you not shun._

_Sleep peacefully, beloved Witch of the Mountains, Tabitha._

"It sounds like it's just the first four lines are the riddle," said PJ, reading the tablet through thrice more. "The 'rules' creep me out, though."

"The rhyming makes it creepier," added Gabe, crossing his arms and backing up to sit on the edge of the long bench at the table.

"They could be part of the riddle too," Lindsay suggested.

Rolling his dark eyes, Karl said, "Well, _of course_ they are, number three-seventy-two. No matter how 'creepy' this 'game' is supposed to be, it is clearly obvious no one would actually be _killed_. And _definitely_ not brought back to life. It's just not possible."

Tyler looked over the stone tablet. "It could have to do with Rabbit Doubt."

"Not possible," Karl replied in his obnoxious, know-it-all tone that made PJ want to punch him. "This is obviously _much _older than Rabbit Doubt. Even the layer of _dust_ seems older than the game." He shuttered. "Do your grandparents have a maid?" he asked Spencer. "It certainly seems they have the money for such help."

Running a hand through his hair, Spencer responded, "Marisol retired a few years ago, and she hasn't been replaced. They just have a cleaning service come over every few months."

Eyes still on the tablet with his face expressionless, Bo said, "Well, Spencer, care to let us in on what this is all supposed to be about? Remembered your little children's rhyme and decided it fit?"

"I'm not behind this!" Spencer practically bellowed, looking exasperated and maybe just a little scared. "The stories about Tabitha used to scare the crap out of me as a kid. I wouldn't do this."

Bo's eyes finally left the epitaph and met Spencer's. "Well, you seem to be the only one who's heard of this witch, so it can't be any of us."

"And there's definitely no witch," Emmett amended. "I don't know what Chloe saw, but I'm sure it wasn't Tabitha."

"Well, of course," said Karl as Tyler stated, "Yeah, Chloe's imagination has always been wild. I remember her running around the house once because of some sort of monster chasing her."

Reading through the epitaph again, Teddy inquired, "Isn't Hecate like the head witch or something like that in _Macbeth_?"

Eyes brightening, Lindsay nodded. "Yeah! Avery and I read that in English this year. She scolded the three witches I think in that one scene. Avery would remember it better."

"Today would be the first twilight, no?" asked Nikki.

"So what four?" questioned Gabe. "If it's not literal death, then what? Spencer, even if you can't get that upstairs door unlocked, could anyone else?"

"You're free to try," answered Spencer. "Granddad might not be too happy, but I'll get him to understand."

"Maybe we should be asking who gave Chloe that letter," Lindsay suggested.

Heading back to Tabitha's portrait, Karl said, "Well, obviously Tyler and Avery were up here with the little redhead. I'm sure we can go ahead and dismiss the dog." He scoffed a laugh during his last statement.

"Avery and me didn't give her any letter." There was a hard tone to Tyler's voice as he looked straight into Karl's eyes, showing that he was not playing around with this. "I didn't even _know_ about that letter until she brought it out at dinner."

"I was in the kitchen the whole time," said PJ.

"Same." Nikki gave a nod. She took a step back, nearly tripping over the raised stone surrounding the fireplace, light brown eyes training on Spencer. "You left for a while, though."

A corner of his mouth moving upwards, Bo's eyes narrowed, arms crossed over his chest. "Huh, lookin' bad for ya, buddy. Whadd'ya got to say?"

Hand at his temple and other hand resting on his bicep, Spencer's eyes narrowed. "I. Did. Not. Do. It."

"Kelsey left for a while too," said PJ, wanting to ease the tension—an arduous task indeed.

Gabe lifted a foot onto the bench. "The rest of us were playing cards. Jo—um, Avery—and Tyler joined us before dinner. Chloe played with Stan but then said she wanted to play Old Maid."

"So we finally quit that ridiculous game," huffed Karl.

Smirking, Gabe looked up at Karl's frown. "You're just mad 'cause you could never figure out the rules."

"More kept getting added and I wasn't allowed to ask what they were!"

Leaning against the wall adjacent of the tablet, Teddy asked, "Did anyone leave at any time before they came downstairs?"

"I had to use the bathroom at some point," Lindsay supplied. "I went upstairs because someone was in the downstairs bathroom. Either Spencer, Vonnie, or Emmett. I don't remember. I _really_ had to pee."

"I went upstairs after you started coming downstairs," said Emmett. "I'd guess Ivy if not the others. She's looking a little more hormonal than usual if you know what I mean."

Lindsay rolled her eyes at the comment as Teddy frowned.

"Sure, blame the period," muttered the blonde, PJ, Gabe, and Karl all twitching at the mention of that particular work of biology.

"Skylar went upstairs at one point too," said Gabe, wanting the subject to change. "Teddy, you too, right? Still shocked there weren't fistfights for the bathrooms the second we got here."

"I came up here when people were in the downstairs bathrooms," Teddy informed. "I remember because I ended up in the room with just the bathtub, wondering where the hell the damn toilet was. Tyler was on his way down first to help out in the kitchen, so he pointed out where to go."

Tyler nodded in agreement. "Chloe didn't want to come out of her fort yet, so Avery was talking to her."

"So we're back to Avery," said Karl slowly and with a malicious smile.

"Jo wouldn't do something like this," Gabe growled, eyes burning. "And don't forget, _you_ were gone for a while too."

"Well, _I_ didn't do it, and you obviously don't know Avery as well as you believe you do."

Gabe scowled, and Bo put his hands up and tried to keep the peace before PJ could get the chance:

"Whoa, boys. Let's go back downstairs. Maybe someone else has an idea."

"It's also starting to get late," Teddy added. "It's, what, almost ten? And it was a long ride to boot."

"Sounds good to me," said Tyler with a shrug, not looking particularly worried about this game.

Bo nodded. "Yeah, Spencer—"

"_I_—"

PJ snapped, smiling when the thought finally came to him. "That's it!"

"What?" This was asked by just about everyone.

"Tabitha," replied PJ. "I've been trying to remember where I've heard of her before. Emmett, remember that book from the book fair in elementary school? We pulled our allowances together to get it."

Smiling, Emmett nodded. "I remember that book. Ghost stories and such in Colorado, right?"

"Oh, I remember that!" laughed Teddy. "You cried so hard when Mom threw it out. Poor baby!"

The last part was said in a condescending tone, and PJ glared at her.

"What's this?" asked Gabe.

"The book held 'true' ghost stories from around the state," Emmett answered, using air quotes. "I think I remember the story about Tabitha, but I only remember a few of those stories. PJ was more into them than I was. I mostly just read the few stories of people making claims about seeing werewolves and vampires."

PJ informed, "It was 'Mountain Crossroads' I think. It talked this man who was backpacking through the mountains and came across a lady standing at a fork in this path he'd found. She offered him a pomegranate to eat, but when he ate the seeds, he ended up belonging to her or something. I'd have to re-read it."

Emmett nodded. "Yeah, I think I remember that. Sounds familiar, anyway."

Cellphone out, Gabe looked to be trying to look up the story. "Dammit, no-go. I can't get Wi-Fi."

Bo, Spencer, PJ, Teddy, Tyler, and Nikki all tried their phones, but they all ended up with the same result.

"Damn." "Crap." "Well, shit."

The voices seemed to melt together before the phones were put away, Bo suggesting again that they all get downstairs.

"We should be able to figure this out tomorrow," he said. "Whoever did it probably got their laugh already."

As the others muttered their ascents, PJ caught the look in Bo's eyes. He didn't seem to believe his own words for some reason, and the blond man turned to take another look at the epitaph as the others migrated towards the staircase.

_We should be fine_, he thought, but, now, he wasn't even sure about that himself.

_**I kept the epitaph similar to the one in Umineko, but, of course, I changed the first few lines, since they aren't searching for the legendary family stash of gold. Anyway, hope you're enjoying so far, especially now that the game is afoot.**_


	6. VI Not Fun Anymore

**Chapter 6: Not Fun Anymore**

The light was like knives heated in open flame slashing through PJ's eyes. He'd fallen asleep almost instantly when his head had hit the pillow last night, and Spencer had been quiet, a nice reverie from being stirred at around three in the morning from Emmett still typing away at his laptop for class.

"Mm…" PJ pushed himself up out of the twin-sized bed, the light blue comforter falling onto the floor and allowing the cool air to slam against his flesh. "Uh, what I hate most about winter."

It looked like Spencer was gone already, probably downstairs—or maybe looking at the epitaph again if he was as haunted by that letter as PJ suspected.

Truth be told, he was a little scared as well. He'd dreamt of the barn owl last night, flying towards a too-bright sun with its feathers falling away and morphing into blood as it showered all around PJ. The red had been bright against the snow, which PJ had been kneeling in, completely naked.

He shivered again, shaking the images out of his head.

Seeing that Spencer's bed was made, PJ decided to make his as well, humming the theme song of _Yacky the Duck_ as he did so. He shouldn't let his mind wander to macabre thoughts. The week was supposed to be fun, and, if anything, that letter and the story of the witch was probably just some sort of planned game with a Rabbit Doubt-type flavor to it.

"So who'd be smart enough to set this up beforehand?" PJ asked himself, tucking the sheet beneath the mattress. "The house belongs to Spencer's family, so he's the obvious choice, but if this is really a Doubt game, then that's what the wolf would want us all to think, which Bo clearly does. Could _he_ be the wolf, then?"

PJ fluffed the pillow, and then headed for the dresser, opening one of the drawers he'd claimed last night.

"No…," said PJ as he pulled on a long-sleeved T-shirt. "That's too obvious. It'd make sense wanting to push the blame onto someone else, but…" PJ shook his head. "So what happens when we all choose a wolf?"

In the game, the chosen character got hanged.

That couldn't happen here, right?

What about the study on the third story?

Would the "deceased" go there?

How would the game end in that case?

Was there more than one person in charge? Along with a wolf, was there also a story-teller?

Thinking back to the epitaph, it sounded like they had a "witch" instead of a "wolf" this time. So was it someone that knew about the story of Tabitha? Using a local legend to push the game forward?

Then how would the person know about the epitaph and that Spencer's great-great-grandfather had supposedly made a deal with her?

More and more, Spencer sounded like the most logical person to be the witch, or possibly the story-teller. Yet, PJ was just unsure. It felt too easy.

Downstairs, PJ smelled pancakes, butter, and syrup, the chatter light. It was probably too early for anyone to argue.

"More flapjacks, anyone?" called Bo, walking out of the kitchen with a stack of pancakes on a large plate.

"Mm-hmm!" hummed Chloe, face glowing as Bo came over to offer seconds (or thirds, PJ didn't know how early everyone else had gotten up).

"Not grits and biscuits n' gravy," said Bo as he placed the plate at the center of the long table, "but can't go wrong with flapjacks."

It looked like bacon and sausage had been made as well, but PJ hadn't been quick enough to get any of the former—only some bits were left.

"Hey, sleepy head!" sang Teddy, pouring blueberry syrup over her small stack.

"I'm not the last up, so I'm good," PJ laughed, taking a seat next to his sister and helping himself to some pancakes and the last sausage patty.

The conversation stayed light for the most part between several groups, and PJ had nearly finished breakfast when Tyler, Kelsey, Skylar, and Karl had finally come in for food.

"Teddy?" asked Kelsey, a hair stick in her mouth as she worked to gather her chestnut-streaked, raven tresses back in a partial-bun.

Looking up, Teddy swallowed the last bite of her breakfast. "Hmm?"

"You see Vonnie?"

"That wasn't her in the bed? There was a long bump under the covers, so I assumed it was her."

Stan trotted into the room, going around the table to sit next to Teddy, looking up at her as he panted happily.

Chuckling, Avery said, "Stan must have snuck into your room last night."

Wiping a hand on her napkin before scratching Stan behind his flopped-over ear, Teddy told Kelsey, "Then no. And I'm guessing that was you in the bathroom and not Ivy?"

Kelsey nodded. "Yeah, my hair was taking _forever_ to style, sorry."

"She seems to irritate easily," Karl inputted. "Maybe she's elsewhere for peace and quiet? I honestly do not know what to make of that Vonnie character."

"Oh great," mumbled Avery, leaning back in her chair, arms crossing over her chest. "This isn't part of that stupid 'game', is it?"

"It's Tabitha!" Chloe's eyes were bright, more than just with sugar rush, it seemed.

"There's no Tabitha," Tyler told her in a soft but sure voice. He stabbed the last piece of his sausage link with his fork before popping it into his mouth.

"Yes there is!" Chloe argued, pouting.

PJ looked around the room before his stomach seemed to fall, heart ramming against his rib cage. He set his fork down, mentally telling himself to stay calm. It didn't mean anything. It was just some game.

"Where's Emmett?" he asked Bo, who was finishing off his glass of milk.

A certain glint lit up Bo's eyes that PJ couldn't read. Did he now see reason to worry?

"I assumed he was down here," he replied. "Then I just figured he was explorin'. Maybe trying to break into that mysterious room or something."

Gabe's eyes scanned the room before he headed for the laundry room, likely to go down into the basement and check the old servants' quarters. He didn't run, but he did seem a little rushed, face forced to take a neutral expression.

As the others began to chatter about where the others could be, Gabe came sprinting back, allowing his face to show his panic.

"Jake's not there," he declared, voice fought to keep from being shrill.

Four people were missing.

_After the first twilight has past, offer four, the sacrifice at last._

Pushing his plate back, PJ had to work to keep what he'd already eaten down. There was no way he would be able to eat any more. Not now.

"They have to be _somewhere_!" exclaimed Avery. There was a spark of fear in her eyes, but the expression kept on her face showed that she refused to get sucked into this witch-business.

Kelsey nodded. "Yeah, like, this house is big and all, but it's not like a castle or something."

"Ooh, a castle," gasped Skylar, sounding to be in awe as if imagining such a place. "Can we have a party there next?"

Pushing away her plate and cup, Lindsay muttered, "Pretty sure we have to survive _this_ party first."

Avery sat up straight. "Lindsay!"

"What? I know I'm not the only one who's thinking it!"

Out of her chair, Chloe said, "It's too dark in here!"

She pulled open the curtains, making morning light spill into the room. It wasn't snowing anymore, but everyone's attention was trained towards the shed.

"The hell?" Kevin stood and got closer to the window. "What's that painted on the door? I can't see it that well from here."

"I'll go out and check," said Spencer. "Let me go get my cellphone. I can take a picture of whatever it is so we can all see when I get back."

Standing, Bo jutted a thumb at his chest. "You go, I go. I still don't trust you about this whole witch-game business."

Spencer scowled but didn't argue.

"I'll go too," said PJ. "Tyler, you can stay here with everyone else."

"I want to go too!" shouted Gabe and Avery at once.

"You two can stay," said Teddy. "Too many don't need to go out there anyway, and I'm sure it's nothing. Maybe a prank. It could have been there before too, but none of us noticed."

Pushing around the remainder of her pancakes on her plate with her fork, Avery nodded quickly. "Y-yeah. We were busy playing Mafia, and then we wouldn't have noticed it after it got dark."

"Sure," whispered Gabe, but his dark eyes went to the little redhead, who stood still as she stared at the storage. "What is it, Chloe?"

She stayed silent, and Tyler told him to just leave her as Stan whined, tail lowering as he turned to look at his youngest human. Avery offered to take Stan out to some newspaper she laid down in the garage as Spencer came back down with his cellphone, PJ following Bo to get their coats and boots.

Outside, the wind cut deep, and PJ tugged down his fleece cap to cover his ears, pulling on the knitted ear-flap ski cap he'd borrowed from Gabe over it. He flipped the collar of his knee-length coat up over his thick scarf, gloved hands stuffed into his pockets.

Ahead of him was Bo in his black bubble coat, the hood pulled over his head and zipper meeting his lips. Spencer took the lead, head ducked as they headed for the storage, the only sound between them the low howling of wind and the crunching of snow.

"What're those?" asked Bo, having to raise his voice above the wind.

Looking down by where they were walking, PJ responded, "Looks like sled tracks. Spence, gotta sled here?"

"Used to play on it when I was a kid," Spencer called back at him. "Don't know my grandparents kept it, but it probably would have been in the closet in the garage or somewhere on the back deck if it was here."

"Why would there be a sled?" asked Bo. "Why need one?"

Spencer responded, "Guess we're about to find out."

Ten feet had felt almost like a mile, and Spencer's hands shook as he took out his cellphone. It nearly took a tumble into the layers of white when he stopped in front of the large door, which had a handle at the bottom, a large padlock keeping it shut.

"The hell is that?" questioned Bo.

The smell hit PJ even through the wind that threatened to knock him over. He pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose, his blue eyes darkening to a greyer tone as he stared at the image on the door.

"That doesn't look like paint," he said, raising his voice for the others.

The color was once red but now was brown, thinner patches nearly black. There was a circle within a larger circle, and in that were two shapes poised to create what looked like some sort of equal-armed cross. Between the two circles were weird marks that looked to be words in some other language, and more of the letters were inside the cross's arms, near the ends. More words were in the slots between the arms.

"That Hebrew?" asked Spencer. "Or maybe Indian or Thai? Arabic?"

"Doesn't look like Hindi," Bo shouted back, sounding like he had too many things going through his mind to accuse Spencer of anything right now. "Thai and Arabic look different too."

"So Hebrew?" asked PJ. "Isn't that a dead language or something?"

"Jews still use it," said Spencer. "I think. One of my friends read in Hebrew for his Bar Mitzvah, anyway."

"What's inside?" Bo questioned as Spencer took some pictures of the image.

PJ bent down to yank at the padlock. "No-go. Spencer, you know where to find a key?"

Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Spencer thought for a moment. "Key box. It's in the basement, next to the boiler room."

The three headed back inside through the backdoor in the kitchen, and Teddy went to get the key along with Spencer, PJ following as Bo went to help Gabe start a fire.

Following Spencer through the door in the laundry room to head down the wooden staircase, Teddy asked in a whisper, "You two really think it might have been blood?"

"Sure looked like it," murmured Spencer, sounding troubled.

"Could have been pig's blood or something," PJ tried. "To scare us."

"It's working," sighed Teddy, tying her long hair back in a low ponytail. "Who would do this kind of crap? It's not fun anymore."

Looking around the basement when they reached the floor, PJ have a humorless laugh.

Spencer flipped on the lights, and PJ was glad to see that it didn't look "basement-ie". The walls were painted burgundy, and the carpet was the same cream color as upstairs.

They passed the old master servant's room, which Tyler had slept in, on the right, and the three smaller rooms were on the left, the boiler room at the end of the hall. To the right of that were some suspended book shelves, a metal box built into the wall below one of the shelves, and a wooden hatch by the wall on the right.

"What's that?" PJ inquired, looking at the hatch. It was locked and looked to be small enough for just one person to climb down if it went deep enough—it reminded him of hatches often shown on pirate ships.

Going to the metal box, Spencer answered, "Wine cellar."

"I wouldn't mind some," Teddy mumbled.

"Since when do you drink?" asked PJ and Spencer in unison, Spencer turning to look at the blonde as he opened the box and PJ leaning against the wall with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets.

Eyebrows moving upward, Teddy shrugged, arms crossed over her chest. "Brie had a stash. Sometimes I'd dip into it."

"Study hard, party hard," joked PJ, his sister sticking her tongue out at him.

Spencer grabbed a key on a small ring. "Got it. Good thing Granddad's OCD and had everything labeled."

This time, Teddy attended the men as they headed back for the storage, her red scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth along with her neck, the long tails whipping behind her in the wind as she walked alongside PJ.

"Oh, God," she whispered upon seeing the image on the door. "What the hell…?"

"We're hoping someone might have a clue," said Bo, backing up to take her hand. "It's alright, darlin'."

PJ saw Spencer glance back at them for a split second with a frown before bending down to undo the padlock.

It fell away, the door already inching upwards without the bondage keeping it shut. At that movement, the stench suddenly hit harder, Teddy backing up as she made a gagging sound, hand leaving Bo's. Her gloved hands went over her nose and mouth, eyes beginning to water, and PJ covered his nose as well, Bo and Spencer just using an arm to bring over their noses.

Bo's free hand went to Teddy's waist as Spencer pushed the door up open all the way.

At the sight and even harsher stench, PJ nearly fell to his knees, Spencer stumbling back with a yell in shock and fear. Teddy screamed, trying to scramble forward as her knees began to give way. Bo caught her before she could fall face-first into the snow, getting onto his knees as he pressed her face into his chest, trying to calm her down.

Her wails mixed with the squawks and caws of ravens or crows (PJ couldn't tell the difference) overhead. Spencer was both swearing and praying, a shaky hand making a cross motion as he stared into the storage area.

Lunging to the side just in time, PJ emptied the contents of his stomach, arms shaking and nose burning as tears burned his eyes and blurred his visions. They felt to freeze on his face, but he barely noticed, his body becoming numb all over.

The witch had taken her four sacrifices.


	7. VII Time to Play

**Chapter 7: Time to Play**

Kelsey and Skylar worked together to make apple cider, neither yet comprehending the seriousness of the situation.

The others had been clamoring for information, but it had been decided to show the pictures of the image first. Hopefully someone would know what it was, and they could figure out what had happened before any more tragedy struck.

It had begun snowing again as the four outside had begun to pull themselves together, and, so far, no one's cellphones were getting any service.

Bo was in the master bedroom with Teddy now, trying to keep her calm while trying to be strong himself. Spencer and PJ were both in the dining room, whiter than the snowflakes floating down from the indifferent heavens.

"Some kind of religious symbol?" guessed Lindsay when Nikki passed her the Blackberry with a shrug. "It looks like a cross."

"Well that's easy enough to gather," Karl retorted.

"Stop," Spencer said, the order soft but obviously nonnegotiable. "Not now."

"It looks like Hebrew," Avery supplied, looking over her friend's shoulder. "I tried studying it when I decided I wanted to study the Old Testament, Kabbalah, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but I decided political science would be better to study due to my long-term goals."

"Do you know any of what it says?" asked PJ, still tasting bile even after rinsing out his mouth ten times, interchanging between water and Listerine.

Staring at the cellphone and having to tap on its ball to keep the screen alight, Avery seemed to sink deep into thought. "I think I recognize Michael's name."

"Michael?" asked PJ, confused.

"An archangel," Avery informed. "In Revelation, he's the one that fights the Beast, I believe. And I'm guessing that if that's Michael's name, then some of the other archangel names are probably here as well. I think this might say 'Uriel, but I don't know for sure."

"Ariel," said Karl, incredulous. He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Like _The Little Mermaid_."

Eyes narrowed, Avery's voice became clipped, the mounted stress from the morning having worn her patience thin: "_Ur-ee-el_, and he's supposed to be one of seven archangels that are by God's throne, and he is oftentimes tied to water." Her eyes went back to the mobile's screen, tone easing back into thoughtfulness. "Again, I didn't study too much about it."

As Kelsey came in with a few mugs of apple cider, Nikki inquired in a small voice, "They were in there, weren't they?"

She was low in her seat, looking apprehensive. She jumped a little bit, a gasp even escaping, when Tyler leaned over and took one of her hands. Blinking quickly, Nikki looked much too frightened to push him away. Instead, she squeezed the offered hand and leaned towards him, Tyler quickly moving over so her head would rest on his chest.

"Who in where?" inquired Kelsey, her cluelessness true and even more innocent than the ten-year-old still in her room with the dog.

"Emmett, Ivy, Vonnie, Jake." There was a hiccup in Gabe's voice, and he looked to be holding in tears, not wanting to be the first to cry.

Little did he know PJ, Teddy, Spencer, and Bo had all shed tears outside, and PJ's face still felt frozen, so he took a mug of cider with a grateful smile to Skylar, who had come in after her new, honorary sister.

"Thanks, Skye," he whispered.

The girl leaned in to give PJ a peck on the cheek. "You're welcome!" She stood up and looked around the room. "What's wrong? Are they still gone?"

"For good," muttered Gabe through clenched teeth. He sank deeper in his chair as he squeezed his eyes shut, shoulders shaking.

"They went home?" As innocent as Kelsey had sounded earlier, Skylar sounded even more so. "How come? They didn't want to play anymore?"

Chair knocked back as he shot up to his feet, Spencer brought his fist down onto the table hard enough to make one of the mugs spill over, forcing Karl and Kevin to shoot up and scramble back to avoid getting burned.

"_This isn't a fucking GAME Skylar_!" Spencer roared, tears beginning to trickle down his cheeks again, hands shaking.

Whimpering, Skylar trembled, and PJ backed up his chair and brought her down to sit on his lap, whispering into her ear: "It's okay, Skye. He's just upset. A lot of us are upset."

"What is _wrong_ with you?!" Kelsey shrieked, trembling as well as her dark eyes filled with tears.

At the same time, Spencer began to back up, nearly tripping over the chair as he apologized.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "It's just…"

"I get it," PJ told him, wanting things to stay calm. "I get it."

His worst nightmares could never have prepared him for what had been inside the storage house. When the shutter had slithered up, the horror had been revealed: teeth scattered across the floor, intestines yanked out of bodies, and pools of blood nearly frozen.

The faces had been bashed in and shredded, to the point that PJ had, for the briefest of moments, clung onto the idea that maybe it wasn't them.

Yet, Jake's hair had been unmistakable, and PJ had been unable to deny that the others were Emmett, Ivy, and Vonnie.

However they had died, it had to have been… horrid sounded too tame. PJ didn't even know how one could ever hope to accurately describe whoever had done that to them.

Obviously having heard the commotion, Bo rushed in, Teddy right behind him. "What's wrong?"

"I lost my temper," replied Spencer, sounding upset with himself for doing so. He was getting his chair upright. "I'll get a cloth to clean up the mess. Thanks Kelsey, and thanks Skylar. The cider was a really good idea."

He fast-walked into the kitchen, and Kelsey took a seat next to Lindsay, taking a mug of cider.

"I'll get the rest of the mugs," Skylar murmured, getting up and moving to avoid hitting Spencer as she walked into the kitchen.

"We're all just stressed," Lindsay whispered, eyes on the table. "Wish my phone worked."

"Same," murmured Avery, Gabe, PJ, and Kevin.

No one was able to get service, and even the landlines were down. It was beginning to snow harder again, and it had felt like it had rained last night. Teddy had admitted to waking up at one point last night, hearing the rain, but she'd gone right back to sleep.

That meant roads would be dangerous to drive on, but PJ wondered which would worse: icy roads or staying in a house with a killer hiding somewhere within.

Possibly in plain sight.

Blinking hard, PJ took a long sip of cider. He couldn't let himself think that way. No one here was capable of murder, especially murder as horrendous as what they'd found in the storage house.

As Spencer finished wiping up the spilt cider and took the mug back into the kitchen, Skylar came back out with three more mugs and sat back on PJ's lap, Bo speaking:

"Before the radio shut off, the weatherman said a blizzard was comin' in. I'm actually still surprised that the—"

As if on cue, the light in the kitchen (the only one that had been on) flickered off.

"And there it goes," sighed Bo, taking a seat on Nikki's other side.

Teddy sat between him and Gabe, reddened eyes on the table. Her soft voice sounded somewhat hoarse when she spoke: "What about the heat?"

"Gas," said Spencer, coming into the dining room with a mug of cider he'd gotten for himself, those that had not claimed a mug reaching for one. "It should still work even though the electricity's out, so the stove should still work too. We'll just have to use a lighter. Oven _might_ work. Don't know for sure."

"Water?" asked Kelsey.

"You'll just have to heat it on the stove for a warm bath."

Spencer headed towards the laundry room, shouting that he'd be right back with some flashlights and lanterns, and Kevin got up to go help him.

"Shit," muttered Gabe. "Okay, none of us know what the hell that thing is." He tapped on Spencer's cellphone now on the table. "So it was them? This 'witch' struck?"

He spat out "witch" as if it were acid.

"It was horrible." The words rushed out of Teddy's lungs, and she set her cider down and pulled her feet up onto the seat's edge, knees covering her mouth as her wide eyes trained on the table. Tears began to run down her cheeks again, and Bo scooted closer to her so as to rub circles along her back. "Ivy… Vonnie… _Dear God_..." Her eyes squeezed shut, forehead going to her knees as her whole body shook.

Elbows going to the table's surface, Gabe's hands came up to where his nose and mouth were covered, fingers straight and pressing along his nose's bridge.

"Jake…," he whispered, the word barely audible through his palms.

It all seemed to finally dawn on Kelsey, the look on her face breaking PJ's heart.

"Vonnie…," she whispered, blinking quickly as tears streaked down her cheeks. "Is she really…?"

Swallowing the cider that no longer tasted sweet, PJ set the mug onto the table, more tears burning his eyes as his stomach again began to churn. "Emmett… just wanted…" He swallowed, forcing the cider to stay down as his nose began to burn again. "He wanted to celebrate after finishing his finals. This week was supposed to be a fun break for him."

"Some fun," Gabe remarked, the tears finally free as he ground his teeth, eyes trained out the window now. "We're all stuck here with some psycho!"

Three lanterns were set at the center of the dining table along with six flashlights and three LED necklace lights. Spencer also took out packs of extra batteries of varying sizes from his pockets and set them onto the table as well before sitting down.

Setting down his mug, Bo told Spencer, "I'd like to get into that room on the third story."

Nodding, Spencer took a deep breath. "I agree. That might be best."

"We'll probably find the person up there," said Tyler. "Or at least his stuff."

"He might have a satellite phone," Karl inputted.

"That could help us contact the police, right?" asked Kevin, picking up his mug.

"Yeah," answered Bo when Karl opened his mouth. "Unless you got snow-mobiles or something?"

Spencer shook his head. "And Grandma and Granddad brought their cross-country skis with them to the cabin."

"Of course," Bo sighed, but, still, he seemed too exhausted and deep in thought to try playing the blame-game with Spencer right now.

With Stan trotting behind her, Chloe skipped into the room climbed into her step-sister's lap.

"What's going on?" she asked as Stan sat down next to the chair, looking up at the girls with a cocked head.

Head raising, Tyler still held onto Nikki but looked over at Avery, who met his eyes.

"Does it have to do with Tabitha?" Chloe continued. "Has she come to play?" She smiled when Avery slid the last mug towards her. "Thank you!"

"What were you doing?" Karl questioned.

"Talking to Stan," she replied simply before taking a sip of cider. She made a long, delighted sound at the taste. "It's not hot cocoa, but I like it!"

"Thank you," responded Skylar and Kelsey in unison, the former sounding in shock while the latter sounded utterly depressed.

After looking at both Tyler and Avery, who nodded, Bo said to Chloe, "Sweetheart, Emmett, Ivy, Vonnie, and Jake are gone."

Looking up from her mug, Chloe blinked. "That's who Tabitha took? I thought she would have taken Karl or Kevin."

"Hey!" both shouted at once, Kevin looking scared while Karl just looked angry.

Shifting in her seat, Avery turned Chloe around to face her. "Chloe… they're _gone_. Dead."

Face blank as if unable to understand how this was upsetting, Chloe responded, "Yeah, I know. It doesn't matter. If we win the game, Tabitha will bring them back. She promised, remember?"

Nikki knocked Tyler away as she shot up, her chair falling over.

"¡_No hay ninguna bruja_!" she screamed, fists trembling at her sides. Tears streaked down her face, and her brown eyes were wide with fear. "They're _dead_! They're not coming back, and it should not be long until _vamos a morir_."

She stomped towards the guest rooms, Tyler going after her.

"Nikki!"

Watching her, Chloe frowned. "Tabitha doesn't like non-believers."


	8. VIII The Seal

**Chapter 8: The Seal**

Bo, Spencer, Kevin, and Gabe were all on the third story with an array of items to try and unlock the door, and Nikki wasn't coming out of the guestroom she'd stayed in last night, only having opened the door for Tyler to join her.

The rest had stayed in the dining room, Skylar having taken the chair Spencer had been in earlier, and Teddy not having moved from her position, eyes much redder and making PJ nervous about his sister's health.

Coming from the study, Avery carried two legal pads and a handful of ballpoint pens.

"Here." She gave one of the pads of yellow-colored paper to Chloe, who was nearly finished with her cider.

Karl moved to Gabe's chair as PJ leaned forward, watching Avery begin to write in neat print.

"Hoping to solve that riddle—for lack of a better word—are we?" asked the brunette, raising an eyebrow. However, the way he looked at the pad showed that, not only was he impressed with the fact Avery could remember the epitaph word for word, he wished he had thought of that sooner.

"What riddle?" asked Kelsey, who was beginning to calm down some, though she still had not smiled since realizing the news—it was weird and disheartening seeing the usually-peppy girl frown.

Skylar kept braiding and unbraiding a lock of her hair. "The one from that letter Spencer read?"

"Yes," answered Avery, sounding distant as her mind worked. "It seems obvious now that whoever is doing this is going by those 'rules' in the epitaph, though whether or not we win will hold no difference—"

"Tabitha promises," interrupted Chloe, drawing a dog.

Karl muttered, "Witch or no, I wouldn't trust the promise of a murderer."

Chloe glowered at Karl, and Stan laid his head on her lap, making the redhead turn and smile, scratching him behind one ear.

"Still," continued Avery, "that drawing was definitely of the occult. Due to the Hebrew, I'm guessing whoever drew it knew something about Jewish mysticism."

"Like you?" Karl raised an eyebrow.

Eyes narrowed, Avery looked to be trying to keep herself from drop-kicking him into the fireplace.

"We're back to that?" she asked, deadpanned.

"Stop it, please," Kelsey begged, drawing her legs close like Teddy, who was still mute. "It's bad enough already without fighting."

Trying for a smile, Skylar took one of Kelsey's hands.

"It'll be okay, sis," she whispered, making Kelsey smile for a brief moment.

Karl continued to stare Avery down as if fishing for some kind of confession, and Chloe woke up Spencer's phone to look at the picture.

"It's a seal," she said, making Karl and Avery end their glaring match.

"What?" PJ asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teddy look up for a moment before just staring at the table again.

Chloe handed the cellphone to Avery. "Make it bigger."

Not bothering to remind her about saying "please," Avery did as instructed before handing the phone back.

"Use this little ball to see different parts of the picture. This isn't a touchscreen like mine or Tyler's," she explained.

"Okay, thanks." Chloe used one hand to look at the phone, her other copying the image onto a clean sheet in her legal pad. "It's the Seventh Magic Square of the Sun, one of Solomon's Seals for amulets."

"How do you know this?" asked Karl, seeming to be even more suspicious of the James-Jennings family than before.

Not seeming to notice (or care) the boy's suspicions, Chloe paused in her drawing to look at the image, tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth as she tried to move it to where she wanted.

"I took Avery's books when she quit reading them," she answered, finishing up the Hebrew text in her drawing. She then set the phone down and backed up as she held up her drawing for all to see. "On the arms are the names of the angels that rule over earth, fire, water, and wind: Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, and Raphael. In these corners between the arms are the names Ariel, Seraph, Tharshis, and Cherub. In the middle of the circles are from Psalms One-sixteen, Sixteen and Seventeen."

"But that's from the bible," said Kelsey, taking out a small, gold crucifix from beneath her red shirt.

Chloe nodded, smiling, though it didn't look so guileless to PJ anymore. There was a certain, knowing glimmer to her eyes.

Or was he imagining things?

Was his grief and fear coloring his reason?

He couldn't let that happen. He was going to need to try and keep his head level to help figure things out. They needed to catch this "witch" soon and keep anyone else from dying.

The thought still made his stomach knot and heart contract, the memory of that storage house slamming into his mind.

_Stop,_ thought PJ. _You need to stay calm. Figure out who's doing this. Get them justice._

"You should read the bible more," said Chloe.

It almost seemed innocent, but the way Kelsey's shoulders shook, as if a chill had rocketed up her spine, it looked like the little girl was starting to unease her as well.

"The Psalms are spells," continued the redhead. "And this seal gives special power if it's engraved into gold. It lets the person with it to escape anything. This includes fate."

She smiled, another chill slithering down PJ's spine.

Scooting her chair away, Lindsay said, "B-but they couldn't escape! Even if that crap's real—"

"It's real!" Chloe's smile was a frown now. "And it wasn't for them. _They_ were _for_ the symbol."

"The door's not gold, though," Kelsey argued.

Looking very uneasy, Avery said, "I can't believe we're actually entertaining this nonsense."

"As you said," Karl told her, "whoever is behind this must be going along with this 'witch' farce—"

Chloe shouted, "Tabitha is real!"

"—and will likely take pains to use things such as that talisman or whatever it's supposed to be. The murderer is trying to make it seem real—"

"It _is_!"

"—so we might as well go along with it. At the very least to the point of looking at how it is supposed to work and what it will do, such as this 'breaking bonds' thing." Karl looked at the legal pad. "It says here that Tabitha will revive on the ninth night, yes?"

Avery nodded, seeming to see it as well. "So she was trapped, at least to some degree. That's why she needed 'sacrifices'"—she spat out the word through clenched teeth—"for the sun seal. It will let her take a physical body."

Eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle, Lindsay inquired, "But then how did she supposedly give Chloe that letter?"

"Obviously, the killer overlooked that detail," PJ inputted as Chloe shouted, "She _did_ give it to me! I'm just closer to her realm than you are!"

Lindsay asked, "So the killer killed them because he didn't have gold?"

"Psalms!" Chloe yelled as Skylar opened her mouth to ask a question.

She lifted the legal pad up again, pointing at the text between the two circles.

"The sacrifices were for God," said Chloe. "The verses say, 'You have freed me from my chains. / I will sacrifice a thank offering to you / And call on the name of the Lord.'"

Still clutching her crucifix, Kelsey shouted, "That's not to God! That's to the Devil! God hates human sacrifice! He—"

Stopping, Kelsey made a sound like she'd been about to cry but cut herself off. She then ran from the dining room, towards the bedrooms.

"Sis!" Skylar put down her mug and ran after her.

PJ was feeling sick again as well as angry. "Even if they were supposed to be sacrifices… I thought they used to sacrifice, like, lambs or something."

The Duncan family hadn't attended church often, and they had stopped completely when Gabe had hit his Terrible Twos. PJ remembered hearing about how Jesus was supposed to be the ultimate sacrifice, usually referred to as a lamb.

"Male lambs a year old," Avery replied. "They had to be without blemish and be the firstborns. Male goats were also sacrificed. Bulls too. They were for burnt offerings. They also sacrificed grain, which was usually mixed with oil, and the poorer people would usually sacrifice turtledoves or pigeons since they're more plentiful."

"But they're _people_," growled Lindsay. She swallowed and fixed her pink fedora. "_Human beings_. They weren't cattle!"

"Equivalents to Tabitha," murmured Chloe with an even voice and emotionless face.

The clattering of a chair made everyone jump, and PJ got to his feet once he realized Teddy was storming back to the master bedroom.

"Teddy!"

He made it into the room just as the door was closing, nearly losing an arm in the process.

"This is just too fucked up!" Teddy wailed, throwing herself onto the king-sized canopy bed. Her nails dug into the white duvet, her body trembling as she sobbed. "Ivy… Vonnie… Oh _God_!"

It was hard to distinguish her words, and PJ sat on the bed, lightly grabbing onto her shoulders as his thumbs dug into her flesh in a massage like they'd do to one-another as little kids, often arguing about whose turn it was to get the massage.

"It's—"

Face pressed against the duvet, Teddy screamed, "Don't you _dare_ tell me it's okay! It's _not fucking okay_!"

PJ wasn't sure how much time had passed before Teddy finally rolled over onto her back, looking exhausted from crying with tears and snot dried on her flushed face. PJ's hands were sore from massaging, but he just sat back, waiting for his sister to speak.

"PJ," she finally said, "do you think the killer's really going to follow those 'rules' from that rock upstairs?"

"It looks like it," PJ sighed.

Staring at the translucent black cloth going over the bed, Teddy looked ready to start crying again.

"Do you remember what's supposed to happen on the second night?" she asked, voice squeaky.

"Something about broken hearts, right?"

"'Before the second midnight has parted, give up two broken-hearted,'" Teddy recited. She sat up, watery eyes meeting her brother's. "PJ, you and Skylar."

Every muscle seizing, PJ couldn't even blink, his heart feeling as if it had stopped before leaping into a harsh gallop, forcing all breath from his lungs.

Swallowing, Teddy slowly shook her head, eyes moving down to the bed. "The two of you were so devastated having to part. Or there's maybe Gabe and Jo. I know they never actually…" She swallowed again, her breathing uneven. "They didn't go out, but they liked each other. A lot. We all knew it."

She began to cry again, and PJ pulled her close, though his movements felt wooden. It was not until now it really dawned on him that he could die here. That he could end up just a bloody pawn in this sadistic game.

"I can't lose you!" sobbed Teddy into her brother's shirt. "It hurts enough already! I just want to go but we're fucking stuck here! I don't want you to die, PJ! I don't want Gabe to die! Please don't leave me! _Please_!"

Trembling now, PJ's eyes and cheeks burned from tears as his teeth clenched.

After a while, he finally managed, "I'm not leaving you, Teddy."

But he wasn't so sure anymore.


	9. IX The Study

**Chapter 9: The Study**

Gabe gave it a try, having used this technique to break into Mrs. Dabney's house when he was eleven.

The first stiff wire had been bent in a way to use as a rake, Gabe using it to run through the lock of the large door. He then took Bo's Swiss army knife, sticking it into the lock and applying pressure so that it would turn once he got the tumblers into place.

That part was easier said than done, both Bo and Spencer having failed to get the door unlocked.

"Maybe you shoulda gone first," Bo finally admitted, Gabe smirking when he got the first pin into place.

It felt like it had more than the standard five or six, so even with Gabe's internet-learned skills, it would probably take him twenty minutes minimum, seeing as whoever put the lock in had been very serious about keeping people out.

Scratching the back of his head, Spencer murmured, "I think I know who broke into my house and drew devil horns on my picture in my family painting now."

The smirk deepened at the memory as Kevin asked, "What you do?"

"Something very stupid," Spencer sighed. "Something that made me deserve a lot more than just having my picture defaced."

"Got that right," Gabe muttered.

The four remained silent until the knife suddenly moved, a loud **clack** resounding, telling the others they were in.

"Does your dad have a lawyer on speed dial or something?" asked Bo, eyebrows jumping towards his hairline as Gabe opened the door, handing the Swiss army knife back to him.

"Used to," answered Gabe. "Insurance guy—" His eyes widened as he stepped into the large room. "_HEY_!"

The four rushed into the room, heading for someone sitting at the huge desk near the opposite wall, which was almost-entirely window.

On the desk were what looked to be monitors, and the chair was turned around, the person sitting there staring out the window. All that could be seen were two large, pale pink bunny ears. A mascot head?

He never turned around, and when Spencer reached him, he yanked off the rabbit-head, Gabe nearly falling to his knees as he rounded the desk to get a good look at the sick bastard behind all this.

The mascot head fell from Spencer's hands as he stumbled back, nearly tripping over Gabe.

"Sweet mother of Jesus," gasped Bo, Kevin moving forward to turn the chair around to face the desk.

It was Debbie Dooley, her head falling to where her ear was now on her shoulder, hazel-brown eyes wide and short blonde hair a frizzy, tangled mess atop her head. There was a long gash that started at her jaw and moved up to her temple.

"She was supposed to be visiting family," said Gabe, voice sounding choked as his breakfast threatened to end up on the cream-colored carpet. "I-in… Minnesota. Sh-she…" He had to cover his mouth, but bile still dripped through as his eyes and nose both stung.

"M-Missus…" Spencer's voice got caught in his throat, also looking like he might be close to losing whatever was in his stomach.

Debbie blinked.

"_Shit_!" "_Fuck_!" "Fucking mother of God!"

Kevin was on his back now as he scrambled back, and Bo hit the ceiling-high bookcase behind him as Spencer tripped over Gabe, hitting his head on the ground as pain flared through the sixteen-year-old boy's left ankle.

"_No more_!" shouted the woman, eyes bugging. Saliva bubbled and trickled out of her mouth, and she fell to the ground, convulsing. "I-I do-on't wa—"

A final spasm, and she froze, blood dribbling from the narrow gash on her face. The bleeding slowed, showing that the woman still lived, yet she could no longer move.

The four males could not move or speak. All they could do was stare in horror for what felt like hours, the only sound being the howling of the wind, bits of ice smacking the window's thick, tinted glass.

"Does that mean it's over?" Kevin squeaked, sounding like there was a trickle of hope spinning through his terror.

Wiping his vomit-covered hand on the carpet, Gabe slowly shook his head as Bo stalked over to where Spencer had dropped the rabbit-shaped head.

"Look here," he said, sounding like he was trying his hardest to stay level-headed.

Trembling as he came forward, Spencer looked where Bo pointed. "A tack?"

Kevin pushed himself to his feet, and Gabe waved him off as he got up, forcing himself to stop shaking. He was supposed to be brave. He couldn't be a scared little kid. Not in this hell house.

"Yeah." Bo looked from the rabbit head to Debbie's face and back. "I think maybe there was poison or something on it. No one touch her. There's a possibility you can get the poison on you. We don't know what was on that tack."

He went to set it on the coffee table over by the gold-and-blue couch to the left of where the desk was.

Staring at the blood that still ran over Debbie's face, Gabe shuttered, whispering, "She's paralyzed. She should have stopped bleeding already if she's dead, right? I think something like that was mentioned on a crime show I watched or something."

"Can't we at least help her?!" Kevin's light brown eyes were wide, looking horrified that they were just standing around, letting the woman die.

Eyes squeezing shut as his fists clenched at his sides, Spencer slowly shook his head. "There's nothing we can do anyway."

Gabe's jaw began to ache from clenching his teeth. All he could do was pray Mrs. Dooley passed quickly.

How messed up was _that_?!

Bo went to open one of the desk drawers. "We should look for something to tell us maybe what killed her, maybe some sort of phone. She didn't move when we came in."

"So she's not behind the killings?" asked Kevin, heading towards one of the tall bookcases.

Along with books, there were scrolls and various odd items, such as bones, which Gabe hoped to be fake but had the bad feeling they were as real as the death he now stared at.

"She might have been some sort of subordinate or something," suggested Bo, who was the least-connected to the woman besides Kevin. "But by the looks of things and what she said, I think maybe she was hostage or something."

Spencer pulled out a prescription-looking bottle of pills from the second drawer he opened, having to be careful to not step of Mrs. Dooley.

"You know what these are?" he asked the others as Gabe finally found the will to move and head over to one of the two tables in the center of the room.

"I think my old man used 'ta have to take those," replied Bo. "After he got diagnosed with some sort of heart problem. Blood thinners, I think they are."

"To make the poison act faster?" guessed Kevin, climbing up a ladder that would be able to roll along the bookcase that spanned across the wall.

"I don't know if they would or not," muttered Bo, scowling at the monitors atop the desk. "Damn cameras all over the mansion."

Gabe left the table and went over to look at the cameras, making sure to go around to where Bo was so he could avoid Debbie's body.

On one screen, he saw the others in the dining room, but Kelsey looked to be uncharacteristically upset, screaming at Chloe of all people. She then stormed off, Skylar getting up to go after her.

Spencer set down the pill bottle and dug around the drawer, also finding a bottle full of clear liquid in the back along with a plastic case.

"What the…"

Looking up, Gabe's brow furrowed as Spencer opened the case, revealing five empty and plugged syringes. The glass bottle had a label to tell them that inside was morphine.

"Was she sick?" asked Bo.

Kevin turned to look at them, holding an old book with dust rising from the pages.

"Not that I know of," answered Gabe in a low voice, still tasting acid and bile.

Spencer shook his head, setting the items down next to the pills.

"Maybe a way to keep her under control?" Kevin suggested. "If she was a hostage or whatever?"

"Possible, I guess," replied Bo, opening up another drawer.

Gabe headed back to the table, flipping through a large book, the pages square-shaped and covers floppy leather. The sewing along the spine made it look like it was bound by hand, and it had been a long time ago, the hand-written pages dated from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.

"What is all this stuff?" asked Gabe, seeing weird symbols, some looking similar to that picture from the storage house and others that looked completely different. The handwriting was small, but each letter looked meticulous, as if the writer had been very cautious about smudging the ink.

"Great-great-granddad was supposed to have been obsessed with the occult," Spencer responded, closing the second drawer and bending down lower to open the final one.

Putting the book he'd had out back, Kevin commented, "I can't even _read_ a bunch of this stuff! There's Hebrew, Arabic, and I think this one looks like Old English…"

"How different can that be from regular English?" Gabe retorted, pausing at one page in the book.

"_Very_," answered Kevin and Spencer at the same time.

Kevin continued, "There's even extra weird letters, and it sounds more like some sorta weird version of German than English."

Slamming the drawer shut, Spencer got up and tiptoed around Debbie's body, pausing as he began to pass her head. Being mindful to not touch her body, he bent down, squinting at the side of her head.

"What'cha got?" asked Bo, closing the drawer he'd been looking through.

Looking up from the page, Gabe swallowed, wondering about Spencer and Bo. Both seemed awfully calm right now. Kevin too, but he'd never known Mrs. Dooley—he was sure he didn't, anyway.

"There's something in her ear," Spencer replied. "Looks like some kind of bud, like the Secret Service people, and there's a wire going down her turtle neck."

"A wire?" Bo sounded alarmed, though, at the same time, he sounded like it was something he already suspected.

_Interesting_, thought Gabe.

"So that's how the killer talked to her?" Kevin questioned, coming down the ladder.

"Yeah," whispered Bo, hands flat on the desk's surface, eyes going to the monitors. "And that means the killer has to be nearby to be able to communicate. That had to be pretty obvious. Ms. Dooley looks like she wouldn't have been in good enough shape to take down four people."

"So why is she here?" asked Gabe. Nothing was making sense. "And that rabbit head…"

"The game we've been playing," whispered Spencer, getting up and looking away from Debbie, face tinted green again. "Rabbit Doubt. It's how we all met and why we're here basically."

"And the 'witch' said this was a game in her letter," said Bo, shoulders slumping and face scrunched up as he tried to think this all through.

"I'm really regretting ever playing that game," Kevin murmured, walking over to a shelf that held what looked to be a human skull.

Bo nodded. "I think we all are."

"We should warn everyone about the cameras," said Gabe.

Spencer nodded. "Yeah, they should know. We'll keep the door open too."

"Sounds good," said Bo. "But how do we flush out the killer?"

Everyone fell silent and began to look around at one-another.

After a while, Kevin exhaled loudly and declared, "Fine, I say what we're all thinking: 'What if it's one of us?'"

"Pretty obvious we aren't willing to take anyone just at their word," Spencer whispered.

"We can't just not trust each other," Gabe protested. "It'd be like suicide!"

In just about every horror movie he'd seen, the worst thing the characters could do was split up.

"So's trusting the killer," Bo muttered, still leaning on the desk. He straightened. "Let's go downstairs. Everybody should get the chance to speak. We can't die if we're all together right?"

"Unless the killer's _not_ one of us," Spencer pointed out. "Like Kelsey said, this house isn't like a castle, but there _could_ be an extra person, right? The Trashman guy from our group online never showed. What if _he's_ behind this?"

"How does Ms. Dooley fit?" Gabe questioned, trying not to look her way. He'd just lose it again.

"What if she played too?" asked Kevin.

"Then it seems awfully weird she's _here_," replied Bo, eyes flickering Spencer's way, making him tense. "Unless she was moved from some other location for some reason. Gabe, you said she was supposed to be in Minnesota?"

Gabe nodded slowly, eyes going to the book he'd been looking at.

"Deputy Dooley died last year," he answered in a low voice. "On-duty. Remember the shooting?"

"I heard about that," replied Kevin as Spencer and Bo looked, both wearing somber looks.

"Ms. Dooley was a mess," Gabe continued. "Finally, she decided to move in with family in Minnesota with her kids. She left five or six months ago."

Bo blinked as if remembering something, jaw setting. Spencer frowned deeply as he looked over at the dead woman.

"Let's head downstairs," said Bo after a while. "The killer's supposed to strike again tonight, right?"

"Two broken-hearted," murmured Spencer, brow furrowing. "Who's that supposed to be?"

Already heading for the door, Bo replied, "Hopefully we won't have to find out."


	10. X Suspicion

**Chapter 10: Suspicion**

By the time Gabe came to the master bedroom to retrieve his siblings, Teddy had calmed down some, still in the bathroom to wash her face. She'd wanted to soak for a while like she would do at home when stressed, but PJ had been the one to remind her that the only way to get hot water now was to heat it up on the stove.

"We're all going to meet in the solar," announced Gabe, stepping into the room.

He looked pale, eyed reddened and shining. His breath smelled as well, like he'd vomited. He wouldn't meet his brother's eyes, worrying PJ.

Heading over to knock on the door leading to the bathroom, PJ asked, "You okay?"

Gabe's shoulders moved upward, his muscles tensing.

"What kind of stupid-ass question is that?" he spat through his teeth.

PJ's fist paused over the door as he stared at the light-colored wood. His worry rose, but what his brother said was valid, he believed. None of them were okay. Teddy had only stopped crying a few minutes ago, and PJ was constantly fighting to keep a level head. It felt like at any moment, he could break down, and he just wanted to grab his siblings and run.

Only, the wind was harsher now, and trying to drive the thirty minutes into town would be certain death.

So was staying here.

The bathroom door opened before PJ could knock, making him jump.

"Sorry," Teddy murmured, walking around him. She was braiding her hair back, pausing for a moment when she spotted Gabe. "You guys find anything?"

Looking over at his little brother, PJ saw him become even paler, face scrunching up in a mixture of rage, sickness, and sorrow.

The look made the eldest Duncan's heart plow into his ribcage as it felt as if a lead weight were trying to crush his stomach.

"We're gonna talk in the solar," said Gabe finally, trying to make his expression and voice even. "Come on."

He turned, PJ gently nudging Teddy to walk in front of him.

At the head of the table in the solar was Spencer, Kevin on one side beside him on the long bench and Karl on the other side. Bo sat at the foot of the table, so Teddy went to sit next to him to where she faced Tabitha's portrait.

With how hysterical she'd been earlier, PJ found that odd, but he then thought how he'd feel more nervous with his back to her. The witch seemed to be watching them with those pale grey eyes, looking like one that could see all, be everywhere.

As PJ went to sit next to Gabe, who sat beside Kevin, Skylar came in with Kelsey, the two sitting next to each other with Kelsey directly across from Teddy.

Stan trotted in behind Avery and Chloe, who sat next to Teddy, Avery looking like she wanted to stay clear of Gabe, Kevin, and Karl. Lindsay was behind them, sitting on Chloe's other side and smiling at her and Stan, who began to walk around the table, sniffing.

Catching Spencer watch him, Avery said, "I took him out a few minutes ago. Don't worry. He's just antsy. He can tell something's wrong, so he's probably trying to help."

"Smart dog," Bo noted, blinking in surprise when Stan looked up at him, seeming to nod before going back to his sniffing.

"Animals can usually tell stuff like that, right?" asked Lindsay. "Like that whole sixth sense thing?"

As she spoke, Karl muttered, "I swear sometimes that mutt knows what I'm saying."

Black nose still to the carpet, Stan growled, making Karl jump and Kevin's eyes widen.

"See?!"

Before anything else could be said about Stan's idiosyncrasies, Tyler came into the solar, shaking his head as he shrugged.

"Nikki doesn't want to come out of her room!" he exclaimed, looking to be at a loss.

He sat across from Lindsay as Avery got up, having to detach Chloe's hand from hers.

"Let me try," she sighed, heading out towards the staircase.

"How much longer do we need to wait?" Karl questioned, fingers drumming along his forearm, making him look more apprehensive than he was trying to let on.

Or maybe he wanted to make sure where he needed to hide his tracks?

PJ forced that thought out of his head. He couldn't do that. He couldn't just start suspecting everyone, making note of every small gesture as evidence of guilt.

Bo said, "Everyone should get the chance to state their opinion."

"State their alibi, you mean," Karl retorted, shaking his head. He then shrugged. "Makes sense. None of us know who's behind this—"

"It's Tabitha!" Chloe insisted.

"What if there's someone else?" asked Teddy in a small voice, sounding like she was hoping more than anything that there was some mysterious extra person hiding somewhere in the mansion.

"Yeah," said PJ, "wasn't there anything upstairs?"

Spencer's and Gabe's eyes went to the table as Kevin looked ahead at the epitaph, Bo rolling in his lips as he kept his arms crossed on the table. Whatever they had found, it wasn't good.

"I can't take this." Lindsay got up and headed for the spiral staircase. "I have to see what the hell's up there."

Bo's eyes widened as he pushed himself away from the table, trying to stop her. "Wait! You _really_ don't want to see that."

Lindsay's fingers curled into tight fists at her sides. "How do I know you guys aren't just working together or something?!"

Gabe nearly tripped over the bench jumping to his feet. "_What_?!"

At the same time, Kevin had gotten to his feet as well, palms coming down on the table. "I never even _knew_ any of them 'til Saturday!"

"How am I supposed to know that?!" Lindsay shouted at him, dark brown eyes wide with fear and outrage.

"We're not doing this!" shouted Spencer when she spoke, Bo pointing at Spencer as he yelled, "I would _never_ work with him!"

Standing up, Kelsey took Lindsay's side as she yelled at Spencer, "Yeah! How are we supposed to know you guys didn't just plan this?!"

Face drawn up in fear, Skylar nodded as she hugged herself, PJ yelling back, "Gabe wouldn't do anything like this!"

"Yeah!" Gabe looked more angry than frightened now.

On his feet now as well, Karl raised his voice to make his point: "_Four_ people died, and it would take quite some strength to not only _kill_ them but to drag them outside to that shed! I cry conspiracy! There's no logical way only one person can be behind this!"

Lindsay turned on him: "So how do we know _you're_ not part of the conspiracy?!"

Karl's eyes blazed. "Now you're turning on _me_?!"

"_You _brought it up!" Tears began to well in her eyes as her fists shook, red spotting her cheeks. "You were _always_ so _hateful_ to Avery and her family! How do I know this isn't part of some crazy grudge?!"

"Last I checked," thundered Karl, palms pressing flat against the table, "none of _them_ were those that died last night! Where were _you_?! Or maybe it's even your precious friend's family! The crumb-snatcher was the one who saw the damned witch!"

"She's _real_!" cried Chloe as Tyler stood, leaning towards Karl as his hands slammed on the table's surface.

"_That_ again?!" he demanded. "What makes you _honestly_ think—"

"¡_CALLATE LA BOCA_!" Nikki screamed from the doorway, hands at the sides of her head and Avery softly patting her on the back as she whispered something. "Just _stop_ already! I cannot take it!"

After several moments of silence, PJ sat, saying, "Yeah, we should just calm down and talk about this."

Slowly lowering himself to his seat as Avery led Nikki over to where Tyler was so she could sit down, Gabe cast an odd look towards his brother that PJ couldn't read.

"Kinda hard to be calm at a time like this."

As everyone else started to get back to their seats, Bo said, "Probably why we need to be able to. We need clear heads and stop screamin' at each other."

"That's right." Avery nodded in agreement. "So you guys find anything in that locked room? I assume you got in seeing as you're having us meet here."

Gabe's nails raked across the table as he frowned, and Spencer swallowed before answering: "It… It was Ms. Dooley."

PJ felt like he was going to fall over, and Bo had to reach out to keep Teddy upright.

"She's dead," Gabe managed, sounding like he was going to throw up. "Poison."

Spencer slowly shook his head, looking haunted. "The rabbit head… If I hadn't—"

"Then I would've pulled it offa her," said Bo in a clear voice, looking at Spencer like he shouldn't feel guilty about this.

About what? What had happened?

Ms. Dooley had been behind all this?!

But Gabe just said she was dead. So there was someone else?

How did she fit in, then? Had she been dressed up as Tabitha and had given Chloe the letter last night? So then the real killer didn't need her anymore?

But then why was she here in the first place? What rabbit head?

"Who's Ms. Dooley?" asked Lindsay and Avery in unison.

"Our neighbor," Teddy squeaked when PJ opened his mouth. She clutched at her locket, which she normally wore underneath her shirt. "Was, anyway, but she… she m-moved…"

"I-I remember her," whispered Kelsey, toying with her crucifix. "Momma and me brought her a casserole after…" She let herself trail off, head bowed.

Brow furrowed and arms crossed over her chest, Avery murmured, "If she's dead, then…"

"Why is she even here?" Karl asked, though not unkindly. It looked like his tough exterior was beginning to crumble.

"Spencer." Bo's tone sounded curious rather than accusatory. "When'd your grandparents leave again?"

"Little more than a week ago," Spencer replied after some thought. "Do you think someone…"

"There's no evidence of another 'game' happening here," said Bo, leaning forward as his arms crossed on the table now that his girlfriend could sit upright without his help. "But someone would have had to come here before us and put up those cameras."

"Cameras?!" cried Avery, Lindsay, Nikki, Kelsey, and Skylar at once, all looking violated.

Teddy stayed silent, but her lips thinned, eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle.

"There's a camera in _every_ room?" Karl looked just as outraged, and PJ didn't blame him.

"Looks like two or three in bigger rooms," replied Bo with a nod.

Hugging herself, Nikki softly asked, "So was this woman behind everything?"

"It looks like she may have been forced into doing something," answered Kevin. "But it looks like she would have been too weak to kill the others. We found morphine and needles."

PJ felt like he was going to be sick, but Teddy looked twice as bad.

After a while, Kevin asked, "So are we going to just go around? Say what we did last night and if we heard anything?"

"How do we know if anyone's lying?" asked Lindsay, casting a glance towards him.

His lips pulled inward, but Avery spoke before he could: "We'll just have to take everyone at their word right now. The possibility of there being an extra person hasn't been ruled out yet."

PJ followed her eyes to Stan, who was sitting next to the door that led into the kid area now. The long-haired white dog with splotches of various shades of brown shook his head, making PJ blink in surprise.

Could that dog seriously understand them?

"Who goes first?" asked Skylar, shifting in her seat.

"Can't we just check these cameras?" Karl questioned. "It would be faster."

"But wouldn't the killer have known about the cameras?" asked Tyler. "Why take the risk putting up camera if they'd just get caught?"

"If the cameras can even record. Not all security cameras do," Avery informed. "He'd probably know how to get around them, or wore some sort of disguise even so we wouldn't be able to tell who it was." She looked at Spencer. "You mentioned a rabbit head. A mask?"

"Looked more like a mascot head," he replied in a soft voice, dark eyes still distant.

"So we just say what we did last night, then?" asked Lindsay. "Then we can check the tapes later, right? See if anyone lied?"

"Sounds good," said PJ, nodding. Everyone was getting the chance to tell the truth.

If anyone had left the room at any time but said he or she hadn't, then that was an instant nail in the coffin.

"I'll go first," Bo volunteered.

As he took a breath, Karl muttered, "Well, _you_ were the one that roomed with one of the deceased."

Bo's jaw set, and Nikki said, "Stop. Not now. No more yelling. Not now." She let Tyler wrap an arm around her waist as she turned to Bo with a nod. "Go on."


	11. XI Dying Dreams

**Chapter 11: Dying Dreams**

Avery returned with both legal pads and the pens, handing Chloe the pad she'd been drawing on. She then flipped to a new page in hers to take notes before motioning for the alibis to be told.

Leaning back in his chair now, Bo gave his story: "I got into bed before Emmett did. He'd been trying to reach his brother but couldn't get service, so he left. I went to sleep, not waking up until this morning. He wasn't in the room, but I'd assumed he'd gone down for breakfast. When he wasn't there I thought maybe he hadn't been able to find any bars last night and had decided to start searchin' again this morning."

Everyone agreeing with the earlier decree to put off any accusations (for now at least), the others just nodded, gears turning in their minds.

"I couldn't sleep good last night," Skylar admitted, folding her hands over her lap. "That letter and rhyme-thing creeped me out. So I got up and tried to get on BuddyBop, but my phone wouldn't let me, so I listened to music. And then I fell asleep finally but had one of those night-head-movie things. A scary one, not a fun one like when I got to model with Adriana Lima, Kate Moss, and Gisele Bündchen."

"You mean a nightmare?" asked Karl, his tone sounding like he wasn't sure if Skylar was really this dim or if she was just acting.

"No…" Skylar's eyes went to the ceiling as she wore a thoughtful look. "That's not it…" She shook her head, Kelsey having to lean over to avoid getting hit by her raven hair. "But it scared me and I woke up when it was dark still. I went to get water from the kitchen and went to sleep again. I think I heard some people moving upstairs, but I don't know. I was still scared and sleepy."

Kelsey went next: "I don't like sleeping with the door closed, so I asked if we could keep it open a crack. Teddy, me, and Vonnie—"

Her voice cracked, eyes going to the table. She swallowed, smiling at Skylar as she rubbed circles over her back.

Taking a deep breath, Kelsey blinked away tears. "Thanks. Anyway, the three of us took the bed. It was big enough, so Ivy…" She swallowed again, closing her eyes. "She slept on the futon. We argued who'd get to shower and stuff first, and I ended up having to go last." She caught the others' looks. "While I waited, I walked around the house some, got a snack, hung out in the book room by the front door for a few minutes, and then Teddy came and got me, saying it was my turn. So I showered and went to bed.

"I slept on the end and got kicked by V-Vonnie. I kicked her back, and we argued about that a little bit, but I couldn't sleep anymore, so I got my cell and headphones and went back into the book room until I started getting tired again. The clock said it was past one I think before I headed back, but I was listening to my music, so I didn't hear nothing."

Avery, Karl, and Teddy all twitched at the use of a double-negative, though none corrected her. Grammar was the least of their problems.

After a few breaths, Nikki informed, "I shared the room with Skylar, and I had trouble sleeping too. It's so cold here! Even with heat on. I put on a sweater and fluffy socks and took a magazine and flashlight—I have a tiny one that fits on my keychain—and read for a while in the living room by the fireplace. It was still warmer there from the fire, but it got cold later, so I went back to the room and tried to fall asleep. It took a long time, but I finally fell asleep and woke up when I heard… guitar? But I went back to sleep until I smell breakfast."

She wiggled away from Tyler's arm and thought back to last night.

"I think I heard something fall or something last night," she said, index finger tapping on her chin. "Sounded like weights hitting the ground from upstairs. I figured maybe someone fell out of bed or something. My mind kept thinking of how cold it was."

"I didn't hear anything like that," said Tyler, "but I was in the basement the entire time. Driving from Pasadena to Denver, taking Chloe to the park and toy stores, Avery to those campuses and—"

She cleared her throat, letting her step-brother know that he'd been about to let certain information slip she didn't want known. It made PJ raise his eyebrows, and by the look of some of the others, he wasn't the only one that was curious about what she'd been doing in Denver besides looking at colleges.

"Anyway," Tyler went on quickly, "I was tired and fell asleep right away. Didn't wake up until Karl kicked at my door to wake me up." He glared at the sixteen-year-old known for causing the Jennings-James kids trouble. "So that was my night."

Pushing up his sleeves up to his elbows, PJ said, "Roomed with Spencer and fell asleep right away. Like Tyler, I slept through the night. I've always been a heavy sleeper."

"After a shower, I went down to the basement to talk to Jake for a while," Gabe stated, crossing his arms. His dark eyes shone, and he stayed quiet for a while before continuing: "He wanted to watch a movie on my phone, but we ended up getting into an argument when I said we couldn't because my phone wouldn't connect to the internet or anything."

He paused again, having to take a deep breath.

"We were always getting into fights like that, where I'd try to explain something, but he doesn't—_didn't_—get it, and like always, I just got mad and left." Gabe swallowed, his voice cracking some. "I brought some comics with me, so I read a few before going to sleep. I woke up later, hearing something fall, like what Nikki said, like weights or something. I think it came from the solar, actually, but I didn't really pay any attention to it. I remembered there was a pool table, so I figured someone dropped the balls or something. I just went back to sleep."

Many of the others began to look around the room, as if expecting to see someone appear from a shadow and strike. Was this, right here, the room the four had died? Or maybe one or two of them? Before being dragged downstairs and outside into the storage house?

The thought made PJ shiver, and he now wanted to leave the room.

"I might have heard something, but if I did, I wasn't paying attention enough to remember," said Kevin. "But, then, I was in the basement, so I shouldn't be surprised. I remember hearing Gabe and Jake fight when I went back to my room from the bathroom down there, but it just sounded like a typical 'I wanna do this' sort of argument, so I didn't really pay attention.

"I went over to the end of the basement when I woke up and couldn't sleep anymore, though. I looked at some of the books there since I couldn't play any games on my phone. It was all just books about wine and mixing drinks, so I went to look upstairs.

"I used my phone as a flashlight and was going into the library by the den when Kelsey was leaving. I tried saying 'Hi' to her, but she probably didn't hear me because of her music." Kevin paused, seeming to think. "I didn't look at the clock before leaving the library, but the sun wasn't up yet, and it was some time after the rain stopped, so I guess close to four or five. I went back to bed and woke up for breakfast."

It was sounding a like most of the people here had had trouble sleeping, which made PJ wonder if that could be telling. He tried to make himself stop thinking about that, but Karl had hit a good point about multiple people would have been needed to pull off killing Vonnie, Jake, Emmett, and Ivy.

To be honest, it probably would have taken at least two people just to take on Ivy in PJ's opinion.

With so many people having been wandering around last night, could that signify more than one person working together?

Even if there was a person hiding somewhere in the mansion, there was a possibility of someone here working with that person, right? There couldn't be this whole other _group_ hiding, right? The house wasn't that big!

"As PJ said, we shared a room," said Spencer. "I fell asleep pretty fast but woke up early, since I'm still used to waking up at five every morning to go for a run and practice guitar. I went downstairs to the study, which is opposite of the lounge-slash-library and near the guest rooms. Two of my dad's old guitars are there, so I tried to practice as quietly as I could, but I guess it wasn't quiet enough."

Nikki shrugged. "If you were bad, I'd be mad, but it's fine. I liked it."

"I went into that study while Kevin was in the bathroom," Karl began, eyes moving to the epitaph for a moment. "I retrieved an unused Sudoku book from a shelf full of them as well as crossword puzzles and the like. I worked on that for a few hours before heading back downstairs, bringing the book and pencil with me. I then washed up before going to bed. I did not wake up until morning, seeing I had overslept. I kicked Tyler's door, knowing he'd still be asleep and then headed upstairs."

"This is bad," said Lindsay, looking over at Stan, who still sat in the same place, "but I'm probably the reason Stan went into the other bedroom. Chloe and Avery shared the bed, and I made myself a nice mattress-type-place on the floor, but Stan kept lying on me, so I kept pushing him off. My allergies aren't _bad_, like I'll just take Zyrtec every morning and I'm fine. I had two dogs and three cats at home because my brother always—"

Avery clapped once, making her friend stop her speeding train of speech.

"You're getting off-topic, and not everyone can follow you," she told her, and Lindsay gave a shy smile before nodding and continuing:

"Anyway, I finally put him out of the room and shut the door, and I think the clock on the nightstand said it was two-thirty-something when I did that. Then, though, I thought maybe he had to go potty, so I left the room and took him out in the garage before bringing him back in, but he wouldn't come back into the room. My fault, probably, sorry Stan. But I went back to sleep, cold from taking Stan out."

"I had to pee!" Chloe exclaimed, looking up from the dog she was drawing. "I tried to wake up Avery so I could ask her where the bathroom was, but then I saw the door for it. So I went and then came back and went to sleep. Then I woke up and had yummy pancakes."

She went back to drawing, her siblings both giving her worried looks. PJ wasn't sure if Chloe truly couldn't comprehend what had happened or if she was just that faithful in Tabitha being real and bringing the four back to life if they could win the "game."

All PJ was sure of regarding her was that she seemed to be the only one unquestionably innocent—besides the dog that was.

"I think I remember Chloe trying to wake me up," Avery said, turning to a new page in her legal pad, "but I've been tired too and just stayed asleep, thinking it was part of a dream or something. I was in bed until morning."

Unbending her legs to set her sock-clad feet onto the floor, Teddy kept her eyes downcast as she spoke: "Kelsey's and Vonnie's argument woke me up, and I remember hearing rain, thinking something along the lines of how I hoped it didn't become hail, because it would keep me from getting any sleep. I think I felt both Vonnie and Kelsey leave the bed, but I never sat up to see or even looked at the futon where Ivy was supposed to be, so I don't even know if she was there at the time."

She closed her eyes, shoulders tense. She jumped when Bo touched her but let him pull her towards him.

"I went back to sleep," she said in a low voice. "Woke up some time later and looked over, seeing a long bump under the blanket. I heard water running in the bathroom. Since Kelsey's a morning person, I thought maybe she was out in the kitchen or somewhere. I thought maybe Ivy was in the bathroom, and since Vonnie's…"

She swallowed, looking ill, taking her time before continuing: "Worse about getting up than PJ, I thought maybe that was her on the other side of the bed, curled up under the covers. She'd been complaining before we went to bed about how cold it was. Said she wanted a boyfriend to keep her warm."

Both she and Kelsey gave short chuckles at that last comment.

Vonnie had always wanted a boyfriend. Teddy and Kelsey had tried setting her up with a few different guys at the end of their senior year, but it had never lasted more than a few days, Vonnie always described as being too clingy, needy, and having absolutely no confidence in herself.

PJ had overheard many of their conversations about this issue, and it saddened him to think that Vonnie would never get to meet her perfect guy now.

Ivy would never get to be a world famous fashion designer.

Emmett would never get to prove himself to his father.

PJ hadn't known Jake very well, but he felt like he could have gone on to do something great if this hadn't have happened.

He remembered to his sister's pleas from the master bedroom.

He wanted to become a famous chef.

Teddy wanted to be an investigative journalist.

Gabe did not know what he wanted to do yet, but they all joked he'd probably end up in law enforcement one day.

Kelsey had mentioned wanting to be a nurse at one point while at a slumber party at the Duncan house.

Last time PJ had Skyped Skylar, she'd talked about how if she liked the mission trip, she might want to join the Peace Corps.

Spencer wanted to be a musician, either perform or teach—he didn't know yet.

Bo wasn't sure about his goal, having said in the past that he was taking online classes while working for PJ's dad at Bob's Bugs Be Gone.

Could any of those goals ever be reached now? What other dreams might die along with those holding onto them?

PJ didn't want anyone else dying. He didn't want any other dreams dying. Whatever he could do to stop the bloodshed, he would do it.

As everyone stayed silent, thinking over all that had been said and wondering just how much of it had been truth, PJ caught Chloe staring at him as if knowing his new resolve. She then looked over at the portrait of the Witch of the Mountains, and PJ's jaw set.

He wasn't going to lose.

He refused to.

_**Happy Halloween~**_


	12. XII Protective Amulet

**Chapter 12: Protective Amulet**

Spencer brought up a sheet from a closet downstairs to cover Debbie with, and Chloe decided she'd rather stay in the solar and draw, completely unconcerned with the fact that a killer was in their midst. Kelsey had offered to stay with her, and Lindsay had opted out of going upstairs.

"I know I wanted to go up before," she murmured, looking at Chloe's drawing, "but… after hearing about that lady up there… I don't think I can."

Kelsey nodded. "I understand. That's why I wanna stay down here. Her husband and my daddy worked together." She rubbed one of her eyes. "We used to have supper with them, and I babysat her kids a few times too."

"I'll stay here," said Kevin, going back to where he'd been sitting. "I don't think I can see her again. I never knew her, but knowing she's dead and that…" He shook his head. "I just can't."

Gabe nodded, unable to even look at the staircase. "Same." He stuck his hands into his pockets, staring at the table.

Teddy hadn't even gotten up. "I'll stay here too."

Her voice was small, and she didn't even seem to notice when Bo kissed her on the temple. She only clutched at her locket.

Looking from the staircase to the table and back, Nikki hesitated.

"Want to stay?" asked Tyler in a concerned voice.

Nikki hesitated for another moment and then shook her head vehemently. "No. I-I'll go."

PJ followed right behind Spencer and Bo, stomach clenching tighter with each step.

Spencer hurried into the room to cover Debbie's body before Skylar, Avery, and Nikki could enter the room, Bo rushing to help.

It'd been too late to keep PJ from seeing, though.

Wide open hazel-brown eyes, open mouth with liquid still dripping from the corner, a narrow cut on her face with dried blood nearly in her eye…

"How was it she… passed away?" asked Karl, dark eyes going wide in wonder, shock, and just a bit of horror as he looked at all the books, papers, and trinkets.

PJ didn't know what it was with the occult and human bones being collected. Most looked to be from animals both big and small, but he really hoped that the human skull watching him from one of the shelves was ceramic.

"Poison, it seems," replied Bo, looking over the monitors atop the large desk by the far wall, which was mostly window. "So we shouldn't touch her. Some poisons can seep up through skin and infect others, and we don't know what poison was used to kill her, so we should be careful."

"How do you know that?" Avery questioned, sounding suspicious.

She stuck her tongue out at the spot of what looked like vomit on the carpet not far from the desk. PJ followed her to look at the monitors.

"I work as an exterminator," Bo replied, raising an eyebrow at Avery but not saying anything about her tone or the way she looked at him. "We use different types of poison on a regular basis. Recently got one recalled and had'ta switch to another 'cause the old one was deemed too unsafe."

"So you know a lot about poisons," said Karl.

He came to the desk with Tyler and Nikki not far behind him, but Skylar stayed closer to the door, her eyes going from the sheet-covered body, to the door, and then to PJ.

She fast-walked to him, and he embraced her just as Bo growled, "I'm not liking you and Avery ganging up on me like that. Come on, let's just—"

"They don't record," said Avery through clenched teeth, checking under the desk.

Watching, PJ could see the others in the solar on one of the small monitors stacked along the desk with some atop others, but it looked like there was no place for a tape or DVD or whatever would be used.

"So whoever's watching would have to sit up here the entire time," said Spencer, eyes going to the sheet.

"It also means we only have each other's word to go on," added Bo.

"Just great," muttered Karl, hands going into the air.

"We should at least check the room," said PJ, and Tyler agreed, Skylar nodding.

The search seemed fruitless even after a half-hour, and questions occasionally came up as they went through shelves and looked through papers. Avery decided to take a few books she found that looked to have to do with King Solomon, but Karl said they should stay in the solar or dining room where they can all look through them together.

Skylar looked at the rabbit's head before going back to PJ, saying the thing was creepy. Nikki had been the one to ask about the poison and the rabbit head, to which Spencer had said they think the poison had been on the tack, ending up in Debbie's blood steam when the head was yanked off.

He'd looked pale while speaking, PJ thinking he felt guilty, having been the one to take off the rabbit head.

"What about the key?" asked Bo. "It was in the basement, right?"

"Yeah," answered PJ, looking through a large book with floppy, leather covers. "There's a key box down there by a hatch for the wine cellar."

Karl looked up from some astrology charts he was looking through. "Is that the only key?"

"I think so," Spencer answered. "Why—" His eyes widened as he figured out the answer.

"The killer would know about the key," whispered Tyler, brow furrowing. He then looked at Spencer, everyone else doing the same. "It's _your_ mansion."

Spencer looked beyond exhausted from trying to defend himself. "I didn't do it!"

Avery crossed her arms, standing near PJ, the books she'd taken on the corner of the table. "How about the people that stayed in the basement last night?"

It sounded like she wasn't ready to rule anyone else out, and PJ agreed.

Accusing Spencer was too easy. It'd be so simple to set things up against him.

Bo nodded, turning away from the bookcase he was looking through. "So that's Tyler—"

"Hey! I didn't do anything!" the dark-haired man protested.

Nikki took one of his arms. "It's okay, Tyler. They're just going over everything."

"But _anyone_ could have explored a little and figured out where the keys are," Karl pointed out.

"You're saying that because you were in the basement too." Avery ignored the look Karl gave her. "But that is true."

"So back to square one," Bo sighed.

After another thirty minutes without anyone getting anywhere, everyone descended into the dining room. The books were placed at the center of the table, and PJ went into the kitchen to cook, Kelsey coming to help. However, it looked like no one was going to be eating much with they day they've had, so PJ just whipped up some chicken noodle soup.

Chopping the celery and parsnips, Kelsey asked, "Do you think we'll be alright?"

"I hope so." PJ wasn't sure if he could say they'd all be fine. "Tyler's going to move into Bo's room, and Kevin into Gabe's. Karl will be staying with me and Spencer. If we stick together and don't go wandering around, we should be fine."

He turned his head as another argument broke out in the dining room. Tensions were very high, blame thrown liberally. Doubt was a very powerful weapon.

Kelsey pushed the chopped vegetables into the pot as PJ turned off the heat for the noodles and took the pot over to the sink, where he'd placed a colander.

"How much of the onion?" Kelsey inquired, holding up the large bulb.

Steam rose into PJ's face as he poured the pasta into the colander. "Just half. Chop up a few cloves of garlic too. We probably should have added those first." He turned when Kelsey remained silent, and he smiled at her questioning look. "A clove is one part of the garlic. It peels away from the bulb and make sure to get the dry skin off and then smash one at a time with the flat part of the knife before you chop them."

"'Kay."

Kelsey got back to work, and when everything else looked good, PJ poured the noodles into the broth.

As predicted, no one ate much. Out of all of them, Chloe actually ate the most. Not even the dog ate much, but Avery had decided to move his food- and water dish into the dining room.

The crackling of the fire could be heard clearly due to the silence, those that had been arguing earlier now silent.

Eyes darted around as the sun slowly sank further into the west, a new question joining the last: Who would be the victims tonight?

Once everyone was in their rooms, PJ lifted the blinds some to look out the window, wishing everyone had agreed to just sleep together in the den. Karl had been the first to disagree, making Nikki accuse him, which had led to Gabe asking why she was so quick to jump at his throat. Tyler had yelled at Gabe for that, and it was finally decided that it would just be better to keep to their rooms.

Did everyone really distrust everyone else that much?

Spencer was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and Karl was setting up some blankets and pillows over by the dresser, muttering about how barbarian it was to be expected of him to sleep on the floor.

_There's a killer loose and he cares about where he sleeps?_ thought PJ as his lips thinned, and he barely heard when there was knocking at the door.

"It's Chloe!" shouted the little girl, and PJ forced a smile as he opened the door. "Avery came with me too."

"I didn't want her walking alone, and she insisted on coming up here," the blonde explained, looking like she just wanted to try and sleep.

Chloe held up something on a beaded silver chain. It looked like aluminum foil pressed into a tight, small circle, black pen used to draw something on the silver disk. It looked like a scorpion inside two circles. Between the two circles was what looked like scribbles to PJ, and it looked like Chloe would have had to work hard to draw that small.

"I made another for Miss Skylar," the little girl said as her sister stuck one end of her flashlight into her mouth and braided Chloe's hair for bed. "They're for protection. I got the foil from the kitchen and took the chains from Tyler's necklaces."

She motioned for PJ to come closer, so he got on one knee so his ear would be by her lips.

"Don't tell him," she whispered, and PJ smiled, nodding.

"I won't," he promised.

Braiding done, Avery said, "Chloe, we should get to bed. 'Night PJ."

"Good night, J—Avery," replied PJ, getting up onto his feet.

Looking up at her step-sister, Chloe inquired, "Can I call you Javery?"

"No," the blonde replied.

"Thanks for this, Chloe," said PJ, holding up the necklace.

"You're welcome!" Chloe waved. "'Night-night!"

The girls left, and PJ shut the door, tossing the amulet onto the dresser, next to the hand lamp.

Getting out his toiletries bag from his duffel, Karl remarked, "The little crimson crumb-snatcher creeps me out."

PJ nodded in agreement. "She seems to know a lot about the occult. Believes Tabitha's real too, and she seems to be the only one that isn't grieving or scared."

"I know, but I find it very hard to believe she could be this devious when she seems to have the mind of a four-year-old."

"I find _all_ of this hard to believe, but I see your point." As PJ headed over to his bed, he looked over at the amulet. "Why do you think she gave that to me and Skye? She never mentioned anyone else."

Karl shrugged, sitting with his back against the dresser. "The two broken-hearted are supposed to die tonight, right? Maybe she doesn't want you and Skylar to die and she thinks that silly trinket can actually protect you."


	13. XIII Handprints

**Chapter 13: Handprints**

The shrill scream resounded through the mansion.

There were shouts as everyone headed towards Skylar's and Nikki's room, but before PJ turned down towards the rooms after jumping off the staircase, something caught his eye from the far side of the den.

"What're—"

Bo stopped when his brown eyes found what PJ was staring at, the blond man nearly collapsing. There were people talking, but he understood nothing.

All he could do was run to the large fireplace, throat beginning to feel raw even though he didn't even realize he was screaming. His vision blurred as he grabbed onto a hand colored red, brown, and black. Skin cracked under his grip as he pulled her out, and long blonde hair fell away from the scalp colored just like the rest of her body.

There was yellow in different cracks, and bits of cloth fell away from the body as larger bits clung around the waist and upper chest, some wire still in place from where a bra had once been, falling as she was moved.

PJ was yanked away as his vision continued to blur, cheeks and throat burning as his chest ached deeply. His back felt like a jackhammer was being taken to it, and when he lurched forward, trying to get to his sister's corpse, he nearly brought Bo down with him.

At some point, Tyler had joined trying to hold PJ back, and there were more words, though PJ still was unable to comprehend any meaning.

He could only stare. From yanking on the arm, it now looked like bones were broken, the limb bent awkwardly, three fingers and the wrist barely hanging on. What had once been eyes looked more like small white balloons. What looked like wire crisscrossed over her mouth as if someone had sewn her mouth shut to keep her from screaming.

His entire body racked with agony, PJ could no longer stand, and Bo and Tyler went from holding him back to keeping him upright. There were sobs coming from elsewhere in the room, PJ becoming aware of who was screaming.

Gabe was pinned down by Karl and Kevin, and Kelsey was wailing from a corner, Skylar draped over her, her cries high in pitch as Nikki looked to be trying to comfort them, though her skin was white as milk, accenting the dark circles under her brown eyes.

When PJ was on his hands and knees, Bo fell as well, tears dripping onto the floor from his eyes as his teeth grit. One of his large hands clutched at the thick carpet, and he looked to be trying very hard to not react just as PJ had.

Swallowing, PJ tried to breathe, letting his eyes rise back to the fireplace.

A second body.

Two broken-hearted.

Bo was alive.

Spencer wasn't.

What looked like tiny white balloons stared at PJ, and Spencer's lips had been sewn closed just like Teddy's.

"How did this happen with none of us knowing?" Karl exploded, sounding enraged and disgusted.

"Oh, God…," gasped Skylar. "Oh God oh God oh God…"

"Why?" Bo finally managed. "Goddammit _why_?!"

Carpet fibers were torn out of the floor as he brought his hand up before slamming his fist back down, nearly collapsing to his side. He looked ready to just curl up and just let his grief seize his body and keep him chained there.

"Bastard," spat Gabe, dark eyes on fire with wrath.

He clawed at the carpet, Avery having to join Kevin and Karl in holding him down.

"I'll _kill_ them!" Gabe shouted, body shaking as tears streaked down his red cheeks. "_I'll fucking kill whoever did this_!"

Turning his head, PJ saw that Skylar's chocolate brown eyes were aimed towards the fireplace, but they looked distant as if seeing something else entirely.

"Oh God oh God oh God…" The words couldn't be heard over everyone else's shouting, PJ having to read her lips.

"I wanna go home!" Lindsay cried, Stan circling her, occasionally stopping to try and lick her face as if to reassure her.

Behind Lindsay, Chloe sat cross-legged, wrinkling her nose before she looked away from the bodies.

The wind howled as if in answer, the snow now a full-on blizzard.

No one was going home.

It was over an hour before everyone was at the dining room table, and Tyler, Kevin, and Karl had gotten more sheets from the closet to carry Teddy's and Spencer's bodies down into the basement. Avery had asked about forensics when the police came, but her voice had been small, showing she hadn't really cared about police or procedures right now.

None of them did. They were on their own.

Last night's chicken noodle soup was reheated for breakfast, but Nikki did it, PJ and Kelsey unable to do anything but sit down.

"What's night three?" Gabe questioned, voice sounding guttural from his screaming earlier.

Picking up her legal pad, Avery read, "'Upon the twilight numbered three, those who remain shall bow to me.'" She threw the pad onto the table as Nikki set a bowl in front of her. "But I'm wondering… Is the killer really going to wait a night for each killing?" Tears trickled from her downcast eyes. "No one's supposed to die tonight according to the epitaph, but…"

"Blizzards only last for a few hours, right? And the roads should be clear enough in a few days at least." Bo spoke in a small voice. He picked up his spoon but set it down again.

"So there's a deadline," murmured Kevin. "Then why draw it out so far?"

"It's the rules!" Chloe exclaimed, looking aggravated that, still, no one believed it was truly Tabitha that was behind all this. "You have to solve her riddle! Tabitha's fair! You just have to follow the rules!"

From the looks on everyone's faces, it seemed they were sure "fair" had nothing to do with this, but no one had the strength or will to try and argue with the girl.

"What's the riddle again?" PJ inquired, pushing noodles around his bowl but feeling too ill to try and eat any of them.

Sighing, Avery picked the legal pad up again.

"_The winged wise one, surrounded by black is a guide to help you seek what I lack.  
__His screech sends terror through poor hearts, so let courage be what sets you apart.  
__There you will find Hecate's rest; those that choose correctly will be eternally blessed.  
__Somewhere hidden, there is a key; find and use it, and you have bested me."_

"Sounds more like a bad poem than a riddle," Karl muttered, stabbing at his food before setting his fork down on the table.

"It's obviously Tabitha who's supposed to be speaking," Avery said, staring at the paper. "'Winged wise one'… I'm thinking of an owl."

"Anyone know anything about owls?" asked Tyler.

Karl shrugged. "They have wings? Their feathers had evolved in a way so they fly silently."

"They usually make their nests _really_ high up," added Avery.

"What about 'find what I lack'?" asked Lindsay.

Pushing his bowl away, Gabe growled, "Only thing I can think of that she lacks is a soul."

"What about Hecate?" Bo inquired. "It was mentioned she was in _Macbeth_."

Lindsay nodded as Avery replied, "Hecate was the queen of witches. She yells at the Wyrd Sisters—"

"Why are they weird?" asked Chloe with a full mouth.

"Wyrd. _W-Y-R-D_," Karl responded when Avery opened her mouth. "It means 'fate'. The three witches in Shakespeare's play _Macbeth_ are also called the 'Wyrd Sisters'."

It sounded like he hadn't wanted to be shown up intellectual-wise, still very much prideful even after what has happened.

Avery nodded. "Anyway, she yells at them, but I didn't really pay attention too much. In play adaptions I've seen, that scene is usually cut out along with Malcolm's speech when he accuses himself of all this stuff he never even did."

"I don't care about Shakespeare, especially right now," said Bo.

"Yeah." Tyler nodded, looking at his soup before crossing his arms. "What does this have to do with anything?"

Nikki took a small sip of broth but then made a face and pushed away her bowl, unable to eat any more than that. "Isn't Hecate also some sort of goddess?"

"Greek," Avery and Karl replied in unison.

"So she's some sort of evil goddess?" Kevin inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"It wasn't until later people started seeing her as a darker-type goddess," Avery answered. "I think so, anyway. In the story I remember most, Hecate helped Demeter into the underworld to save her daughter, Persephone."

"So is there some kind of cave out there?" asked Karl, looking like he recalled the story as well.

Gabe shoved himself away from the table. "So we're supposed to just wander the mountains looking for some cave. Just great. We're doomed."

He stomped out of the room, and when PJ got up to follow, Avery motioned for him to sit back down.

"I got him."

She left, ordering Stan to come so he could guard the door. She then told Lindsay she'd be fine going to Gabe by herself and to just stay in the living room.

"Stan will keep us safe," the blonde promised with a smile.

Trying to return the gesture, Lindsay nodded and sat back down.

Tyler told his step-sister, "I can always come—"

"No." Avery shook her head. "I'll be fine. We'll be back in time for lunch."

As she left, Kevin muttered, "Don't think any of us will be ready to eat by then either."

"Starving to death is preferable to this hell," Karl agreed.

Noticing that Skylar was still trembling, PJ placed a hand on her shoulder. She flinched but then eased upon seeing it was PJ. Without a word, she leaned to the right so her head could rest on his shoulder, and PJ scooted closer to embrace her.

"Are we going to talk about the door?" Karl questioned.

"What door?" asked PJ, looking down at Skylar as she whimpered.

Toying with her crucifix, Kelsey murmured, "There were handprints on hers and Nikki's door."

Nikki pulled her feet up onto her chair and hugged her legs close to her chest. She said nothing, but the look in her eyes made her seem to think that it could have been her in the fireplace.

"Blood," Skylar squeaked. Her eyes squeezed shut, tears streaking down her pale cheeks. "I-it-it was bl-blood."

Elbows propped up on the table, Bo's hands covered his mouth. His brow furrowed in deep thought.

"Did either of you hear anything last night?" he asked. "Anyone tryin' to get into your room?"

Nikki shook her head. "I took sleeping pills last night. I only wake up when Skylar screamed."

"Maybe I heard something?" Skylar whispered. Her arms wrapped around her small waist more tightly. "I was so scared I was hearing things all night. I didn't sleep. I laid in my bed after putting that necklace Chloe gave me on the door handle."

The charm. PJ's heart pounded. Had he and Skylar been the intended victims for last night?

But the charms were just tin foil on a chain!

It wouldn't stop a killer!

Unless the killer had seen the charm and had decided to change his mind, still keeping up this witch game.

PJ's head hurt.

Smiling at Skylar, Chloe said, "See? It saved you."

Chair toppling over, Kelsey shouted, "But _Teddy's dead_!"

Chloe looked up at her but didn't blink, mouth now a straight line. "So?"

Kelsey looked like she was ready to slap the girl, and Tyler got to his feet. He was about to say something when Kelsey stormed away, Nikki finally getting up to see if she could do anything.

"Obviously staying together isn't going to happen," Lindsay murmured.


	14. XIV Cruel Whiteness

**Chapter 14: Cruel Whiteness**

Gabe really wished this house had locks on the doors, but if he remembered correctly, nothing short of a slab of concrete secured by steel couldn't keep Jo—_Avery_, he corrected himself for the umpteenth time—out. Even then, though, he speculated that she would always find a way into wherever it was she felt the need to go. She was stubborn that way.

He'd missed her.

Not that she'd ever hear it from him.

"You can't just run away, stupid," said Avery, light brown eyes narrowing. "Not with some psycho somewhere in the damn mansion."

"And how do you know it's not me and I just led you into a trap?" asked Gabe with his usual demeanor, fists clenching and unclenching as he tried to harden himself to what he'd seen earlier, what he'd heard afterwards.

He couldn't let emotion control him. It had controlled Teddy after the first night, turning her into a shell. She wouldn't have put up a fight in that state, especially if the bastard had grabbed Spencer first. Gabe didn't care how often his sister had gone out with Bo, had told him "I love you."

It hadn't taken a genius to know she still felt even deeper love for Spencer, showing that the emotion had absolutely nothing to do with logic.

Sitting at the foot of his bed, Gabe swung one leg so his heel hit the board, his dark eyes trained out the window. Ironic that he should only see white outside.

The color didn't seem so pure now.

"I highly doubt you're smart enough for that," muttered Avery as she shook her head, going to sit on the other bed. "First, you'd have to know that _I'd_ be the one that would come after you when it would have been more likely of that being PJ. Second, you'd have to make up some sort of rig or _something_ seeing as even though you're, like, five inches taller than me now, I can still kick your ass."

Gabe almost smiled at that. Almost.

"How do you know I haven't been training since you moved?" he inquired.

"Have you?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe could see her cross her arms, and her eyebrows were probably raised. She had her legs crossed, skirt riding up a bit, though she was wearing stockings again. Her outfits now all looked so similar.

He cast a quick glance her way before looking out the window again. "Looks like you haven't."

It was a little hard to see due to her button-up shirt, cardigan, and tie, but it looked like while she hadn't been growing much taller, she _had_ been growing.

She shrugged, eyebrows rising again as if she knew where his eyes had gone, even if it had only been for a moment.

"I find a Dojo or Dojang when I'm stressed," she said. "I've been focusing more on school."

"I remember hearing a lot of screaming when you got the news you were getting close to failing fourth grade."

"Yeah, I heard a lot of yelling too. When my mom called me when I got home."

"She wasn't in Denver?"

Avery shook her head. "Stayed in Pasadena. I just stayed here with my dad, aunt, and uncle for a couple years."

"Why?"

"Partly because of trouble at my school in Pasadena, partly because I just wanted to. I hadn't seen my dad much since the divorce when I was two or three. We'd just talk on the phone mostly, but I wanted to stay with him, and since I was having trouble anyway, Mom said she didn't mind. She just wanted daily reports by phone as well as monthly ones by e-mail."

Her voice wavered at the beginning, finally going flat halfway through.

Gabe's eyes finally tore from the window as he cocked an eyebrow at her. "Anal much?"

Avery's eyes were on the carpet, hands now at the edge of the unmade twin-sized bed. She cleared her throat and took a few deep breaths before meeting Gabe's eyes, her own eerily empty.

A shiver ran up his spine, Gabe suddenly wondering if maybe he'd been the one to be tricked alone, but he forced himself to squash the thought as soon as it appeared.

_No_, he told himself. _Jo wouldn't do anything like this. She can be a jerk, but she's not evil._

But what about Avery?

_Stop!_ Gabe mentally yelled as Avery questioned, "You're calling _my_ mom anal?"

Her arms were crossed again, voice and cocked head making her seem like she was trying to go back into smartass mode, but the flatness of her gaze ruined whatever effect she was going for.

A new shiver ran down Gabe's spine as he forced a snort of a laugh.

"True," he chuckled. "You should have seen her at my baseball games."

"How long until she got herself banned?"

"Three weeks."

"That long?"

Avery sounded unconvinced, like it should have taken only one game before Amy Duncan would have been banned from the bleachers for life.

"Yeah, the second umpire—"

"_Second_?"

This time, Gabe's laugh wasn't forced, but he felt guilty afterwards for making such a response with what had happened—what _was_ happening.

He told her, "First guy quit. The second tried to have some patience. Lots of parents lose it apparently, but with Mom…"

Gabe shook his head. He didn't want to feel happy. He felt like he didn't deserve to feel happy.

He should have been able to do something to help Teddy.

Someway.

Somehow.

Now she was gone, and there was nothing left to do but sit and wait. Obviously the blizzard would be going on until mid-afternoon at the most, and even after it passed, the snow was too high for them to go anywhere.

There was also the chance of the wind picking back up, blowing around what snow had already fallen. While not technically a blizzard, those could be just as deadly if caught outside.

Teddy had nearly lost two of her fingers and four of her toes that one day she'd walked back home from the Wentz house. Her ears, nose, and cheeks had been in bad shape as well, and she'd been home sick for nearly two weeks after.

Both Amy and Bob had admonished her for taking such a risk, but they'd all been happy she was okay.

Now, though, there could be no happiness—only horror.

The slap that nearly knocked Gabe into the wall was painful and sure to leave a bruise. He jumped up to his feet, and by the deepened scowl on Avery's face, it looked like she hated having to look up at him when they had once been nearly the same height.

"What the hell was _that_ for?!" Gabe raged, one hand going to his stinging cheek.

He swore he could already feel it swelling.

Avery's eyes burned with that fire that had first garnered his attention back in elementary school.

She growled, "If you weren't just thinking about giving up, then strike back. If you were, then you deserved it, moron."

Licking his lips, Gabe made his hand lower as he sat back down on the bed, now having to be the one to look up.

"You've lost your touch. Not going soft, are we?"

He smirked, and a corner of Avery's mouth twitched before she finally sat back down.

"Never," she said with a snort. "But I'm planning on being president, not part of the Secret Service—Hey!"

She frowned at the face Gabe was making at the thought of her becoming who was often known as the most powerful person in the free world.

Smirking again, Gabe said, "I can tell you this much: No one's going to want to fuck with us with you in charge."

The frown became a small smile, a bit of color rising to Avery's cheeks.

"Got that right," she agreed. "Play your cards right, and maybe you'll be able to work yourself up to being my Secretary of State."

Stan barked from outside, the smirk erasing from Gabe's face.

"God," he murmured, "I swear that dog can understand every word we say."

"He's definitely intelligent," Avery chuckled before turning to yell towards the door, "but would immediately want to declare war on all the cats!"

Another bark, but a different tone—agreement?

Gabe shook his head. A dog that could understand English? Seriously?

"Didn't know you were a dog person," said Gabe, wanting to keep the conversation light—keep that empty look from returning.

Apparently, the topic of when and why she'd lived in Denver and had then left was off-limits, and Gabe remembered from earlier when Avery had cut Tyler off. What had he been about to say that she didn't want known. Smart as she was, she had to know that such an obvious keeping of secrets would make her a suspect on some level. Was it that important? Or did she not think she could be considered a suspect?

Smiling, Avery replied, "I've always loved dogs, but my dad was allergic, and Mom never liked them, ever since this one time when she was a kid, apparently, but I don't know the story. But since Tyler, Chloe, and I were always fighting, Dad—my stepdad—got us Stan from the shelter. He's really helped us bond. We still fight, sure, but without Stan… I don't know."

There was a certain light to Avery's eyes that made Gabe smile, but the past tense when referring to her birth father hadn't escaped him.

He was dead, then. Had he been sick while Avery stayed with him? Was that the reason for all the reports back to her mother? Then why allow her to stay with a sick man? Had something been going on?

Gabe wanted answers but was too scared to ask.

"That's cool" was all he said instead, remembering that bull mastiff that had followed him home from school one day. He'd like a dog like Sweetie-Pie one day, but just with a different name.

_One day_, thought Gabe, still feeling the sting that had spread to half his face. _Sure, one day._

"So think we should head back downstairs?" asked Avery, looking hopeful.

"Sure."

Stan whined from outside, and Avery sighed.

She got up, smoothing down her brown skirt. "I'm going to have to take Stan out again."

Gabe got up as well. "I'm going to stop at the bathroom real quick, wash my face, and then I'll get some ice."

"I can bring in some snow for you."

"No shortage of that, that's for sure."

"Makes me glad I live in Pasadena now." Avery shook her head. "I don't care how pretty snow is. It's devil's dandruff, I swear."

She turned the knob, opening the door a crack. "Don't take long, okay?"

Eyes going to the window for the last time, Gabe chuckled. "Still day time. I should be alright." He caught the girl's glower. "Fine, I'll hurry. Just hope you didn't ruin my good looks for long. I'm supposed to go on a date on Christmas Eve."

Avery's eyes narrowed at the joke. "Yeah, yeah, player. You're just lucky I decided against any permanent damage."

She left without closing the door, Stan whining more incessantly, and it sounded like he was stumbling as well. It was probably due to his full bladder.

Going over towards the oval mirror over the dresser, Gabe inspected the damage. It didn't hurt like hell anymore, but the skin was already beginning to take on a purple hue. It stung whenever Gabe poked the center of the spot, which always seemed to be his immediate action to any bruise that was received.

Sighing, he took a step back when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, the half-open door on his right.

As he turned, there was more movement out of the corner of his eye, as if whatever was there was moving with him.

"Is—"

What felt like wire wrapped tightly around his neck, the person now behind him, pulling downward to keep him just off-balance enough to make it too hard to fight back.

He tried thrashing around, fingers trying to get under the wire and get it away from his flesh. It was beginning to cut in, and no air could get into his lungs.

Whoever was doing this moved with him, and, slowly, black stars crowded around the edges of Gabe's vision, slowly moving inward.

He fell back, and the wire left, though he still could not breathe.

Trying to turn over, the stars stalled in his vision, and Gabe kept fighting to get breath down his trachea when sharp, piercing pain exploded through his stomach and flashed outward like a shockwave. He couldn't even scream, the piercing agony melting and mixing with the sensation of burning, bubbling up from his middle.

Burning, burning…

The stars moved inward once more.

Another sharp pain right after whatever had been shoved into him was yanked out.

He looked directly at the attacker, but saw no more than a shadow, body trembling before seizing when the item found a new home, a few inches above the first.

"Fight…"

Gabe couldn't be sure if he said it aloud or not, but he wanted to believe he had. Only, throat throbbing as a trickle of air-flow returned, it was most likely no more than a thought.

_Need… to fight… Can't… give up… Jo… will hit me… again…_

The wire returned with vigor once Gabe thought to try screaming, and, finally, after what seemed like lifetimes, the blackness mercifully rescued him from the cruel, cruel white.


	15. XV Unfair

**Chapter 15: Unfair**

As Lindsay had predicted, no one was really bothering with sticking together anymore.

PJ was currently in the study with Bo, the two going through books and shifting through papers. Many of them were hand-written, and English (or, at least, Modern English) was not a majority-used language, though PJ was glad to see some translation notes in the margins of books he thought looked helpful. The one he currently held looked to be in Spanish at first glance, but he thought maybe it was actually Latin.

"Got anything?" he asked, finally setting the book onto the table, open to the page he was on.

Eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle as he flipped through the pages of a tome, Bo muttered, "Depends, know anything about this witchcraft and occult nonsense?"

Chuckling, PJ climbed the ladder to look for a book mentioned in the one he'd been looking at. "Not a believer?"

"Believe in the one true god and His Son, none of this crap," Bo replied, shoving the tome back into the shelf, having to use both hands before he took down another.

Finding what he wanted, PJ said, "Never understood how believing in a being that created the universe sending down someone that was also him that did miracles and died for sins is really any different than believing in something like magic."

"Because God has true power," Bo responded, sounding like he didn't like PJ's point.

Probably because it sounded more like mockery than a point.

Bo continued: "We probably could have some if not for the forbidden fruit, but all this? Just drawings and words. No more." He looked over at the sheet covering Debbie. "But whoever's doing this apparently wants us to start questioning that."

"There's already one believer," PJ murmured, going back to the table, going to flip through the leather-bound book. "How'd she even know about that circle? What's she again? Eight? Nine?"

"Ten, I believe."

"When I was ten, I was still having trouble with adding and subtracting."

"Teddy said you still carried your blankie to school too."

The two fell silent, the book nearly falling from PJ's hands. His legs felt weak, and he took the books to the floor and sat before they had the chance to give way. Bo stood still facing the bookshelf, so PJ was unable to read his face. His muscles looked tense beneath his long-sleeved plaid shirt, and he could hear a few shuttering breaths.

Tears stung PJ's eyes, and it was getting harder and harder to keep from breaking down again.

Emmett… Teddy…

His best friend and sister. Gone.

Suddenly he wished he'd been the one to go follow Gabe instead of Avery.

The two had barely spoken to one-another thus far. Why had she been the one to say she should talk to him?

_Stop_, PJ thought. _You can't suspect everybody._

He'd nearly given into paranoia when Bo had said he'd go with him into the study. So many questions had rushed through PJ's mind, making him dizzy.

Could Bo be behind everything?

There'd been many times where he'd seemed too calm, too in-control, too knowledgeable.

Then there was the poison that had killed Debbie.

Bo would know about poisons working as an exterminator, right? Including which would kill a person the fastest.

"So what about you?" inquired Bo, voice low and cracking.

"Huh?" PJ's voice was too high, and he cleared his throat.

Turning, Bo gave PJ a look out of the corner of his eye.

Was he really suspicious of _him_? He actually believed he would kill his best friend and sister?!

"You know I'm Christian," Bo expanded, looking through some loose leaf papers underneath some sort of animal skull. "What about you? I know you guys never really went to church as a family, but what about after leaving for college?"

Clearing his throat again, PJ answered, "Still don't go to church. Last time I went was when Skylar and I were dating. She and her family go every Sunday, and she went on Wednesdays too, so I went to youth group with her a few times. Her mom wasn't happy at first that I wasn't Christian, though."

Bo gave a small chuckle, which sounded forced.

"My mom was the same way," he said. "Didn't like my old girlfriend back in Tennessee 'cause she was agnostic. Thought I was being rebellious."

PJ opened his mouth when he noticed something odd about how the pages were numbered.

"Hey, I thi—"

There was a piercing scream coming from downstairs, and the papers fell from Bo's hands, some getting crushed under his feet as he ran for the spiral staircase. PJ followed, but the other man was much faster, leaping over the rail when he was halfway down.

Through the solar and hallway, the two found Lindsay being held by Tyler and Skylar, the sixteen-year-old girl's light blue fedora on the ground and tears stained dark green by eyeliner. She clung to Tyler's baseball tee, hands shaking and brown eyes wide with terror.

Skylar let go of her when PJ approached, red-painted lips parting as her eyes widened.

Karl was stumbling away from the doorway, one hand over his chest as his mouth kept moving soundlessly. His skin was pale, and he fell back, head hitting Kevin's legs.

Kelsey and Nikki sprinting up the staircase sounded like thunder as PJ's heart finally kicked into motion, everything around him seeming to slow. He couldn't comprehend Bo's words—barely felt him grabbing his shoulders.

What finally snapped him out of it was Avery, who arrived last with Chloe's hand in hers.

"What's going—"

She never had to finish, her light brown eyes moving to the wide-open door.

It seemed like barely a blink before Bo had his hands wrapped around her arms, pulling her back and away from the door.

"Gabe!" she shrieked. "Gabe you fucking ass-hat! Get up! _Get up_!"

Handing the trembling-Lindsay over to Nikki, Tyler had to join Bo to keep his step-sister from charging into the room.

Everyone was talking or yelling, everything swirling together, yet, soon, Avery's voice was the loudest of them all, slicing through everything else as tears streamed down her reddening cheeks.

"_Asshole_!" She nearly rammed her step-brother into the wall trying to escape from his and Bo's grips. "You were supposed to _fight_, dammit! _I won't forgive you_! I will _never_ forgive you! Selfish _coward_!"

She screamed and screamed, and as her shrieks echoed through the house, PJ finally fell to his hands and knees, feeling like any strength that had been left with him was finally wrenched away. Someone kneeled next to him, a delicate hand rubbing along his back as another laid over one of his clenched fists.

There was no telling how long it was before the screams finally ebbed, leaving an exhausted-looking girl now needing the two men holding her back to keep her upright.

"Who did this?" she growled hoarsely, hair falling over her face.

Her entire body trembled, but it was hard to see her though the tears beginning to spill from PJ's eyes once more.

In a low voice fighting desperately to stay calm, Nikki asked, "Lindsay, did you see anyone?"

"N-no," answered the younger girl, cheeks now streaked with dark green. "I-I was just coming up here to use the bathroom 'cause people were in the other ones."

"So you just _happened_ to discover him?" Karl accused, eyes narrowed.

"Don't—"

Nikki was cut off when Lindsay whirled around, rage joining fear to contort her pale face.

"_Really_?" she wailed. "Well you sure are quick to point your finger!"

"Both of—"

Kelsey was interrupted when Karl raged back, "Oh, _come on_! I can't be the only one thinking it!"

"I had _just_ come up here!"

Nikki's hands gently took Lindsay's shoulders as Bo took a step in front of Karl.

"What about Bo and PJ?" said Tyler. "They were supposedly in the study!"

"What—!"

Karl pointed at Kelsey. "And you two were in that room for a _long_ time. Nikki went with you, but then Skylar went after. What do any of _you_ have to say?!"

"That's ridiculous!" shouted Kelsey, clutching her crucifix again.

"Let's not forget Avery," said Kevin, staring at the girl on her knees. "She's been up here all this time with Gabe. Alone."

Tyler turned on him just as Bo was about to shout something at him for his accusation. As he opened his mouth, Avery moved enough so she was only on one knee, head inclined enough to stare at Kevin through the space between her hair.

"I left to take Stan out into the garage." Her words were low but clear, almost emotionless after that long explosion. "He was _alive_. He was going to head to the bathroom to wash his face before heading downstairs so we could all talk about who the killer was." She slowly got to her feet but still stared through the gap in her hair. "What about _you_."

It wasn't a question, and PJ finally made himself look up as he took deep breaths. Skylar rubbed circles along his upper back, but she paused every now and then, watching Avery and Kevin.

"What _about_ me?" questioned Kevin through clenched teeth, hands curled into fists at his sides.

Avery's breathing sounded jagged, and she still trembled, looking like she was fighting to stand. She finally swallowed and replied in a flat tone, "The slam when I was on a date with Dustin. Then the New Year's party when I was with Wes. After that was at the park when I dated Seth. Even when you moved, I couldn't keep a boyfriend. I was too paranoid of it being ruined. Because of what _you did_."

Everyone was now looking at Kevin.

What had he done? Was this all because he was still obsessed with Avery? Was that why he'd gone after Gabe?

But then why Teddy? Spencer? Emmett? Ivy? Vonnie? Jake?

Something didn't fit with this, but PJ's mind just didn't want to work now.

"That's why I moved to live with my dad and stepmom," Kevin said in a tone that seemed to be trying to match Avery's in flatness. "I don't pull shit like that anymore, and I would _never_ _kill_ anybody! What about you?! Where was this place you supposedly went in Denver? Maybe it was to meet the sick bastard behind all this! _Huh_?!"

"He has a point there, jerk he sounds to be," said Karl, one hand going to his chin with the elbow resting on his fist. His eyes turned to Avery, who kept staring at Kevin. "I seem to remember you even went as far to bribe me to stay in the hotel room with the C student, the Crimson Crumb Snatcher, and the dog while you had Tyler drive you somewhere. You were _very_ devoted to keeping it quiet." He looked over at Tyler. "And you drove her there. Don't think you're out of suspicion just because you have less brain power than your dog."

"Hey—!"

Avery's sharp gaze snapped towards Karl, making him flinch.

"None of you _damn_ business!" she growled, cutting Tyler off.

"Avery," Kelsey tried, squeaking when that gaze turned on her. "I-I'm really, really sorry, b-but i-it…"

Wiping at her cheeks, Lindsay whispered, "It's okay, Avery. It's important."

Her gaze seemed to waver as her hair began to move away from her face and wrinkles began to line her forehead. Her nostrils flared as she took deep breaths, but she finally nodded.

"Solar," she told the others. "I'll talk there. N-not here. I-I can't stand…" She took a breath. "I can't stand staying here anymore. Let's—Chloe, you're not going into that room!"

Tyler picked up his squirming little sister, carrying her towards the solar with the others following, PJ getting help from Skylar and Kelsey to stand and walk.

"No!" cried Chloe in protest. "I wanna see! I wanna see if he bled through the belly!"

PJ stopped for a moment, brow furrowing as his lips parted.

_Upon the twilight four, life, from one's belly, shall pour._

It was still day three, evening not for several more hours.

Looked like Tabitha didn't care about being fair anymore.


End file.
